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The amount of coffee stockpiled in warehouses by Brazilian cooperatives has plummeted following the surge in commodity prices over the past year. As Roberto Samora and Marcelo Teixeira reported for Reuters, farmers have been selling more to take advantage of the record-high prices, leaving little in the way of reserve.
As the world’s biggest coffee producer, Brazil stockpiles coffee to underpin the global coffee markets, ensuring enough coffee is available to cover future contracts. When stockpiles drop, especially when the next harvest has not yet begun, it pushes the price further up.
“We never had such low stocks in February, a period that is still distant from the new crop,” said Willian Cesar Freiria from Cocapec, Brazil’s third-largest coffee co-op. “Until the start of the next harvest we won’t have much coffee to sell. And it is not only us; it is the same everywhere [in Brazil].”
Cooxupe, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, still has coffee sitting in their warehouse, but most has already been sold and are merely waiting to be shipped to roasters. Various experts estimate that farmers have sold around 90% of their 2024 crop: “What they have left is the lowest amount we ever saw in our records,” Cooxupe’s Luiz Fernando dos Reis said.
