Coffee - Continuous
Headline: Coffee prices to remain high, Euromonitor
A delay in global harvests will contribute to lingering high coffee prices as the market struggles to bounce back from soaring costs earlier this year, according to Euromonitor.
Brazil, the world's largest overall coffee producer, is expected to see the largest off-year crop on record in 2011, though the full effect on supply will likely not be felt until the 2012/13 harvest, said Euromonitor analyst Brian Morgan.
34-year highs
In early May 2011, Arabica coffee prices hit a 34-year high, due to several factors such as increased global demand, higher oil prices, and adverse weather patterns in various parts of the world which led to lower than average coffee yields.
Colombia, the world's larger producer of Arabica coffee, is still recovering from a 2009 crop year that saw the smallest harvest in over three decades, said Morgan.
According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO), the 2010/11 crop year began with coffee stocks at the lowest levels seen since ICO began taking records in 1965.
Total coffee prices began to fall around May and were down five per cent in June, but are still up from the same period in 2010 and are likely to remain well above US$1 per pound until depleted stocks are rebuilt, said the analyst.
Source: beveragedaily.com
