Consumers will not see soaring coffee prices drop until the middle of next year at the earliest as “very challenging headwinds” continue to batter the industry, Lavazza has warned.
The Italian coffee giant’s vice chair, Giuseppe Lavazza, admitted “I was wrong” after predicting last year that prices would begin to fall this year.
Poor harvests, particularly in the major production areas of Brazil and Vietnam, geopolitical conflict and supply chain disruption have all contributed to prices reaching record 15-year highs, he said.
On Monday, prices reached an all-time high of $4,300 (€3,976) a tonne, with Mr Lavazza saying: “We have never seen such a spike in price as the trend right now.”
Blockages in the Suez Canal have seen shipping costs alone hit four times the average.
For consumers, this has meant the price of a 1kg bag of beans rising by 15 per cent in a year, and Mr Lavazza said could increase by 20 per cent to 25 per cent over the coming year.
Mr Lavazza said: “We have faced very, very strong headwinds. I don’t see any reason why coffee prices will go down.”
However, this has not dented the “strong trend” of some consumers turning to beans to make fresh coffee at home, which began when the pandemic closed cafés, but has showed no sign of slowing even now.
Mr Lavazza said: “People love it so much. And we think there’s an environmental element too, of people wanting to move away from using pods.”
