Most everyone has noticed that coffee prices have increased during the past year.  Our coffee costs have increased by 40% to 60% on our coffee during this past year and we've absorbed most of the cost to try and keep our retail pricing affordable.  Every coffee retailer is dealing with these problems, whether they are a major world-wide coffee chain or a small retailer like ourselves.

There are several reasons why prices have increased.  Much of the coffee producing regions have undergone difficult weather conditions including flooding and poor crop production.  Along with this, third world countries have driven up demand because more people in these developing countries are moving from the cheaper robusta coffee beans to more expensive arabica coffee beans.  This is why arabica coffee has gone up more in price than cheaper robusta coffee.  As this has happened, we are seeing more "grocery store" coffee brands change their coffee blends by adding more robusta coffee to the mix, hoping their customers won't notice the difference.  They do notice!

Another driving force in the increase of coffee pricing has to do with coffee speculators.  Coffee is a commodity, traded on stock exchanges in the futures market.  We continue to see more speculators drive up the price by trading coffee futures on the commodities market.  This has negatively impacted the coffee industry and ultimately, pricing to you, the customer.  The other factor is shipping costs.  Keep in mind that not only have our shipping costs to the customer have increased, but all coffee is shipped into the United States from overseas.  As fuel prices have risen, these shipping costs have also risen.

We have recently seen a leveling off of coffee prices and some small reductions.  We just reduced our pricing on most of our coffees.  We have absorbed most of the increase during the past year and we are determined to maintain price levels at the lowest possible pricing to keep our specialty coffee affordable.

If you have any questions about coffee industry prices, please drop us an email at:  bluemoosecoffee@hotmail.com.

Greg

Blue Moose Coffee

www.bluemoosecoffee.com