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Your cup of morning Joe is about to shock you

With a growing deficit between demand and supply, double-digit inflation looms for coffee drinkers in early 2025

    • A worker picking coffee berries at a plantation in Colombia. The roots of the coffee crisis are in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s two largest producers, as bad weather has hurt crops.
    • A worker picking coffee berries at a plantation in Colombia. The roots of the coffee crisis are in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s two largest producers, as bad weather has hurt crops. PHOTO: REUTERS
    Published Tue, Jan 21, 2025 · 05:00 AM

    “WHY everybody did not buy coffee I cannot tell you,” writes Edwin Lefevre in his 1923 classic Reminiscences of a Stock Operator about the speculative investment of the day in commodities. “It didn’t require a Sherlock Holmes to size up the situation.”

    The same could be said about today’s market: Stocking up now, before retail prices rise further, seems like a no-brainer. Forgive me for sounding alarmist but, alongside olive oil, coffee is something I cannot live without, particularly since my efforts to live the life and hopefully clone the looks of George Clooney hooked me into the world of capsules.

    It is to the advantage of food giant Nestle that my caffeine consumption has proven largely price inelastic; I will pay whatever it takes to get my morning fix. And what is coming is not pretty; double-digit inflation looms for coffee drinkers in early 2025. Sure, companies will find ways to alleviate the impact – margin compression, shrinkflation, the lot – but prices will rise.

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