MANY household staples have rocketed in price over the last couple of years amid the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Coffee is the latest – with the price of a cappuccino at your local coffee shop and the instant supermarket stuff soaring.
Instant coffee prices have risen so much, in fact, that some Co-op supermarkets have even put security trackers on jars after prices reached double figures.
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In June, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said soaring coffee costs were behind food price inflation of 15.4% in May.
For consumers, meanwhile, figures from the Office for National Statistics indicate that annual coffee price inflation has been between 7.6% and 16.5% every month for the past year.
But why?
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said it was due to the “high cost of coffee beans, as well as key producer nations exporting less”.
Climate change is a huge factor, with droughts followed by a bad frost in 2021 affecting the coffee crop in Brazil.
The wet season came late in Vietnam, also affecting production. The transport of this key European producer’s coffee has also been disrupted by Yemen’s Houthi rebels wreaking havoc in the Red Sea, targeting cargo ships and leading to longer transport times.
The dual threat of the cost-of-living crisis and hospitality crisis has seen many coffee shops paying higher wages whilst also struggling to fill positions – lumping more financial burden and leading to a hike in prices in some cases.
I wouldn’t expect a change anytime soon either. UK consumers won't see a drop in soaring coffee prices until at least mid-next year, according to coffee giant Lavazza, due to “very challenging headwinds” facing the industry.
Last month, prices hit an all-time high of £3356 per tonne, with the company saying they have “never seen such a spike in price”.
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