Hello. We hope the post finds you well.
Did you know that coffee is a commodity and is traded just like stocks on the stock exchange? The coffee "C" price is the trading price of green coffee on the commodities exchanges.
As you have undoubtedly heard, coffee prices are soaring to world record levels. The current C price for green coffee is $4.20USD. In the history of coffee trading, the C price has never been this high. A new record is being established almost every week now.
When we started the business, the C price was $1.71USD. Shipping for our regular order was about $150.
We just got a shipment of coffee and our regular order increased in price by $2300 from about 6 weeks ago. Shipping skyrocketed to $300.
What is driving this increase? Multiple factors but primarily drought in Brazil (about 50% of all Arabica coffee produced is form brazil), crop failures in Vietnam, speculation, and increased shipping costs. The threat of tariffs is also driving wild buying by all the larger companies worldwide.
What does all this mean?
On a positive note - the farmers are getting paid way more for their product and deservedly so.
On a not so positive note, small/micro roasters (a micro roaster is any roaster that roasts less than 50,000 pounds a year) are paying the price. We buy coffee on the "spot" offerings market and do not have contracts set up fixing the price of purchases up front for the year. This requires tens of thousands of dollars up front in capital. Most roasters do not have that kind of money laying around.
We are being completely transparent here in telling you that our profit margins are razor thin right now. For the last year, we have been hoping and hoping that the prices will level off but that hasn't happened and is not forecast to happen until spring 2026 at the earliest.
We are looking for creative ways to not have to increase our price . We like the $20 a bag model and are committed to this so we need to find a different way to offset the out of control costs for our raw coffee.
We have decided that we are going to have to change our free local shipping policy.
The changes are as follows:
- Any order over $30 will get FREE local delivery.
- Orders under $30 will be charged a FLAT RATE $5 LOCAL DELIVERY FEE.
- For shipping (ie. outside of our local delivery area), you will get charged our discount rate from Canada Post/UPS.
- For shipping of orders over $75 in Canada, you will be charged a flat rate of $18
- SUBSCRIBERS: You will continue to get free local delivery.
We understand that this change may not be welcome by everyone - not everyone likes change and we understand that. We are open to discussing this in greater detail when you see us at a market or send us an email and we will do our best to explain things.
We are doing our best here and have absorbed the price increases for the past 10 months.
We have many links available to explain the C market, speculation, and coffee growing issues.
Wishing you all a great cup of coffee.
Chin Chin!
Paul et Sylvie