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Although many specialty coffee buyers don’t use the arabica coffee futures market to determine pricing, it remains an important benchmark. Known as the “C price,” the arabica market price for coffee changes daily and serves as a snapshot of the industry’s performance.
The C price has been all over the place over the last few years, illustrating just how volatile the coffee market is. Earlier this year, the C market price climbed to above $4 per pound, a historic milestone heralded as “a new era” for coffee. Five years ago, it dropped below $1 per pound, triggering the Specialty Coffee Association to label the event a pricing crisis.
The C market has always been complex, but the price changes are easy to understand because they’re shown in dollars (or cents) per pound—a familiar and straightforward measurement for many. But going forward, that’s all about to change.
As Nick Brown reports for Daily Coffee News, the company that runs the C market, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), announced that it is phasing out the current U.S. cents-per-pound benchmark. They’re replacing the C market price with dollars per metric ton.
The C market price determines coffee futures, or contracts where buyers and sellers agree to trade coffee at a set price in the future. March 2028 will be the last month for contracts using the old system, according to a press release from ICE. The exchange will introduce new contracts using metric tons later this year.
Commodities consultant Judith Ganes told Brown that she was surprised the move hadn’t happened earlier. The new pricing system aligns with how robusta futures are traded, Ganes said, and “takes into consideration big bags now, and bulk shipping. Price-by-the-pound was becoming more obsolete.”
Read the full story on the changing C price from Daily Coffee News here.
