Coffee Market: 2018 Recap and 2019 Expert Predictions (RR40)

Roast and Reason: A Coffee Podcast

Coffee is traded or sold in very different ways. In fact there are basically two coffee markets: commodity coffee or non-commodity coffee (specialty coffee). Specialty coffee consumers value a variety of factors like origin, growing and processing techniques, roast level, etc. But with commodity coffee only one thing matters: price.

Commodity coffee is like any other commodity, the only differentiating factor is price. And the price for commodity coffee is set on the Intercontinental Exchange in New York city.

As a financial asset, commodity coffee has had a pretty terrible year in 2018. Coffee prices decreased about 20% over the year, to lows that haven’t been seen since 2006. This price collapse occurred due to a number of factors in the market that have lead to oversupply.