Coffee futures rose to a fresh record in New York as US tariffs and crop concerns keep supplies constrained, risking further price hikes at cafes and supermarkets.
Prices of arabica, the variety favored by chains such as Starbucks Corp. for specialty brews, climbed as much as 4.1% to an all-time high of $4.3795 a pound. Futures had set the prior record of $4.2995 a pound in February on heightened fears that top grower Brazil would be further affected by adverse weather.
Futures are up about 50% since early August as US tariffs and an inverted market structure — in which the current contract is priced at a premium to future ones — have exacerbated the steep price rally by spurring a steep drawdown of inventories at exchange-monitored warehouses. Those stockpiles overall are at the lowest since early 2024, while containing the least Brazilian beans on record.
Market players from importers to small and large commercial roasters alike are holding “very small amounts of inventory,” putting near-term supplies including in exchange inventories in “super high demand,” said Sam Klein, a green coffee buyer at Partners Coffee.
The New York-based roaster has been “taking shorter positions everywhere and trying not to have the risk of having, say, a container on the books that’s going to ship in three months from an origin where on any given day there might be some political dispute,” Klein said.
“We’re in a circumstance where basically every roaster in the states is just waiting to see when there’s going to be a better market to book coffee at,” Klein said. “Even if people aren’t feeling great about the direction the market’s going to go in, it also doesn’t feel great to book a year’s worth of coffee at a historically high level.”
President Donald Trump’s 50% levies on Brazilian beans took effect in August, and the coffee trade between the two countries has largely stalled since. The coffee industries on both sides of the borders have lobbied for those tariffs to be lifted. Meanwhile, the US president also threatened new fees on Colombia last weekend. The two countries are the biggest suppliers of coffee to the US, risking further price pain for American consumers already paying record coffee prices.
