My son in law has permaculture business that includes consulting with local farmers on using sustainable farming practices. I donât know that much about it, but I do know that he planted 300 trees on a neighborâs farm last spring as part of a local movement to provide shade for local cattle in the face of increasing heat waves here in the Shenandoah valley of Virginia. It looks like we are a little behind the curve compared to the coffee growers given that we have already had two consecutive seasons of extreme heat and drought, but better late than never.
Coffee prices are staying up because demand is staying up. Global production has been growing despite the gloom and doom. Hereâs an article from 2010:
And yet âthe output for coffee year 2023/24 is expected to increase by 5.8% to 178.0 million bagsâ. Back in 2010 it was 128 million bags, so weâve seen a 40% increase.
https://icocoffee.org/documents/cy2023-24/Coffee_Report_and_Outlook_December_2023_ICO.pdf
âThe biennial production effect will play a large role in the outlook, especially for Brazil and the Arabicas, as the impact of the July 2021 frost continues to be resolved.â
DB2
My favorite tea, my crux pre-breakfast pre-coffee comfort and brain ignition, is Assam, an unusually strong and robustly flavored black tea. Due to a mix of GCC and bad luck of various sorts it is rapidly disappearing.
There really is no tea like it and so I bought a multi-year tea contract from my long time tea wholesaler in Barcelona (he told husband and me that we are even more devoted to good tea than the EnglishâŚ)
I also am a coffee fanatic, and have a contract for green beans from the mountains of Oaxaca that I hand roast myself.
d fb
Starbucks just had a bad quarter. Sales were off by 2%.
SB is remodeling its stores for the app production lines. This means setting community aside. Setting community aside is offering other coffee stores a chance to succeed.
We may be seeing a growing group of retailers in the US change the bidding process to a degree. The more buyers the higher the price goes. Even if the quantity bought is similar.
I have my doubts that it is climate change. The financial press is fed
BS like mushrooms and kept in the dark.
iirc, Mickey Dâs had a bad quarter too. So you have contraction at both ends: cheap eats, and foo-foo coffee.
Steve
Made up excuse to raise prices. just say âclimate changeâ of âracismâ or one of those buzz words and it becomes as real as The Man of a Mancha thought he was. "Come! Enter into my imagination and see him!
Climate fact: Nowhere coffee is grown is experiencing temps above optimum coffee growing temps. Nother fact: Warming is good for plants. Itâs a biological fact. You might call it settled science but maybe youâd better not.
I have mixed feelings about former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. But there was almost no coffee culture in the US until Starbucks came along, and most coffee shops today, especially chains, are copies of the Starbucks model.
One thing Schultz always emphasized is the coffee shop needs to be a third place, a place where people gather. In is best form Starbucks was that. Starbucks (including under Schultzâs leadership) really diluted that by jamming a Starbucks into any location possible, in the name of growing quarter profits.
As you point out, Starbucks has pivoted towards pushing the app, which is the opposite of the what got them to where they are. Assembly line, stare at your phone, get in and get out fast.
Little known fact: Bill Gates Sr. was instrumental in Howard Schultz obtaining financing to buy Starbucks from the original founders.
Schultz a short while back I think left SB again. He explained what we are discussing. I did not read what he wrote but heard simply that the focus had shifted. It was obvious to me as well.
Verhage et al. modeled the future effects of climate change on Brazilian coffee production and found that the carbon dioxide fertilization effect will offset heat losses. They write that:
The model projects that yield losses due to high air temperatures and water deficit will increase, while losses due to frost will decrease. Nevertheless, extra losses are offset by the CO2 fertilization effect, resulting in a small net increase of the average Brazilian Arabica coffee yield of 0.8% to 1.48 t haâ1 in 2040â2070, assuming growing locations and irrigation remain unchanged. Simulations further indicate that future yields can reach up to 1.81 t haâ1 provided that irrigation use is expanded.
DB2
Is Jerry Springer behind the SpringerLink?
No, Springer is an European publishing company with thousands of scientific journals including Nature. Theyâve been around 180 years.
DB2
Learn something everyday
Thanks
2050
So price must go up now
Starbucks has been gouging the public because of the pandemic. Now Starbucks is talking about lowering their prices. They have lost market share.
This is due to a shift in coffee production impacted by climate change. From your ICO link:
Asia & Oceania and Africaâs 4.7% and 7.2% decreases in production to 49.84 million bags and 17.9 million bags, respectively, can be attributed to adverse weather conditions negatively affecting key producers in the regions, particularly Vietnam, CĂ´te dâIvoire and Uganda. The magnitude of the fall in outputs of the two regions was entirely mitigated by the Americas, especially by South Americaâs 4.8% increase, which in turn was driven mainly by the biennial production-affected 8.4% increase in Brazil.
The increased coffee acreage in Brazil is increasing deforestation (and thereby accelerating climate change) of the Amazon rain forest.'âŚ2.2 A Bitter Brew- Coffee Production, Deforestation, Soil Erosion and Water Contamination â Environmental ScienceBites
âŚwhich in turn is increasing the probability of weather extremes that negatively impact Brazil coffee yields, requiring more acreage to be planted.
In Brazil, the worldâs largest coffee producer, Almeida and other farmers have started grappling with the nationâs worst drought in more than seven decades and above-average temperatures. Almeida expected to harvest 120 sacks of coffee beans this harvest season, but instead managed just 100. Brazil drought punishes coffee farms and threatens to push prices even higher | AP News
A vicious cycleâŚ
I read somewhere that the cost of coffee (beans) is among the lower overall costs to Starbucks. Canât find it again, of course!
A piece I saw on the wire a week or two ago said that Starbucks is repositioning itself as more âpremiumâ, eliminating discounts and coupons, and charging people more. The CEO says the reduced volume will reduce âstrainâ on employees. I am pretty sure the reality will be reduced employees. All hail the âJCsâ.
dopey
He is going to be the employee who is cut.
LMAO
Inflating profit margin seems to be the thing among âJCsâ now. Restrict customer choice, then charge more and more for the few choices that remain. People who ask auto company JCs about âaffordabilityâ are brushed off with âlet them buy usedâ.
VW has been using that strategy, taking the brand âup marketâ, and charging more, while cutting quality. Now that they are running into consumer resistance to more price increases, and they are being eaten alive by warranty claims, because their cars are so shoddy now, they are going after the third lever of margin expansion: take money away from the people who do the actual work. RS used the same playbook thirty years ago. When they couldnât raise prices due to competition, and they couldnât cut product quality any farther, they cut the pay of the people in the stores.
Steve