Brazil's coffee stockpiles dwindle as prices hit record highs

In a Brazilian coffee warehouse usually stuffed with a quarter of a million bags of the aromatic bean, voices echo in the largely empty space at a large producers' cooperative.

Reeling from one of the worst droughts on record, Brazil's coffee farmers have sold almost all their beans months before the new crop as global prices have nearly doubled to all-time highs in the past 14 months.

Consumers waking up to smell the coffee were jolted last year as Starbucks hiked the price of a large cup of fresh brew about 16% to as much as $3.85. Nespresso coffee-pod subscribers will soon pay up to $1.45 per basic pod, up from $1.30.

Prices for arabica, the most popular bean, used in most ground roasted coffee, soared 70% in 2024 and nearly 20% this year to an all-time high above $4.30 per pound on February 11. Robusta , the second-most popular bean, often used in instant coffee, surged 72% in 2024 and peaked at $5,847 per metric ton on February 12.

Yet caffeine connoisseurs cannot kick the habit. They may again drink more coffee than is produced globally in 2025 - for the fourth time in the past six years.

Farmers in Brazil, the world's largest coffee grower, raided their stockpiles to cash in with record exports in 2024. But exports by Vietnam fell 17.2% from 2023 as the top robusta supplier battled bad weather last year.

"We never had such low stocks in February, a period that is still distant from the new crop," said Willian Cesar Freiria, sales manager at Cocapec, Brazil's third largest coffee co-op, in the town of Franca in Sao Paulo state.

Cocapec received 1.1 million bags from associated farmers in 2024, down from 1.5 million bags in 2023, due to smaller production in the region, after another year of below-average rains.

"Until the start of the next harvest we won't have much coffee to sell," said Freiria. "And it is not only us; it is the same everywhere."

Supplies only seem larger at Cooxupe, the world's largest coffee co-op, in Brazil's top-producing state of Minas Gerais.

"You see a lot of coffee in the warehouses, but nearly all is coffee already sold to final clients. They are only here waiting to be shipped," said Andre Silva Pinto, Cooxupe's storage coordinator.

Coffee farmers have already sold 90% of the 2024 crop, added Luiz Fernando dos Reis, sales superintendent for Cooxupe. "What they have left is the lowest amount we ever saw in our records."

Big one-ton bags of arabica are taking around 70% of the space at Cooxupe's Japy storage complex, while half of the other 45 bulk silos are filled. The complex can hold 2.6 million 60-kg bags, the equivalent of one month's consumption in the United States, the world's largest coffee drinking nation.

SOLD OUT

Cooxupe's estimate of farmers' sales is in line with recent data showing historically low inventory levels. Consultancy Safras & Mercado estimated farmers have sold 88% of the 2024 crop. Broker Pine Agronegocios said only 8% remained.

Silva Pinto said the Japy complex will be 80% empty by May, as most coffee would have been shipped and the co-op prepares to receive the new harvest which starts around May or June. The co-op does not expect new-crop coffee to be ready for shipping before July.

Osmar Junior, a Cooxupe member who grows arabica in Piumhi municipality in southern Minas Gerais, said neither he nor his neighbors have any coffee left to sell. He will only start to harvest the new crop around late May.

Paulo Armelin, who farms near Patrocinio in the Cerrado Mineiro region, is an exception, keeping 40% of his 2024 crop as a precaution.

"I will have a smaller production this year, so I decided to hold on to some coffee from last year as a reserve in case of need," he said.

Armelin, who sells high-quality beans directly to four US clients, is negotiating with a San Francisco-based roaster. He is waiting for an answer after asking for $4.50 a pound, up from $3.05 last year.

"It is very good coffee and I'm actually cutting the premium I used to have over the futures," he said, referring to contracts to sell at a predetermined price on a future date.

Luis Norberto Pascoal, owner of Daterra Coffees, a large, high-quality arabica grower, is happy that smaller farmers are making more profits, but doubts current prices can be sustained.

Many roasters will lack the means to buy beans and look for ways to cut costs, he said. "Quality is going to go down."