The €5 latte cannot be far away: hedge funds and iced drinks are driving change in the coffee market

Irish Independent

2 days ago

The wholesale price of coffee rose 47pc in a year – is nothing sacred?
Fearghal O'Connor
With hedge funds driving volatile coffee bean markets to record highs in recent months and a growing taste for cold coffee brews amongst young people, the coffee sector is facing big changes.
Prices have fallen back a little in recent months – but right now, the green coffee beans that are the basic raw material for your flat white are 47pc more expensive than they were a year ago, says Sheila Dowling, commercial director at Bewley's, the country's best known bean roaster.
That means Bewley's is paying €1.7m more this year for its usual order of green beans – and coffee consumers have been hit with price rises of as much as 30pc a cup.
The nightmare scenario for everyone in the sector is to see the price of a cup of coffee rise above €5 – a level that would be hard for consumers to swallow and businesses to sustain, says Dowling.
But when, earlier this year, the price of beans on the market rose towards $5 a pound that looked set to become a reality.
'Coffee was always around $1.20 a pound, maybe $1.40. But after Covid things really started to change. We had Ukraine. Then we had the Suez Canal, then the Red Sea. It was the perfect storm – and by February of this year it had risen to over $4.20.'
Last week it was reported that the boss of coffee giant Lavazza blamed hedge fund speculation for the volatility.
Dowling agrees, but believes that a huge amount of supply that has been bought by speculators will at some point be released into the market and help moderate the price.
​But the EU's new Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which comes into force in January and aims to curb deforestation linked to the production of commodities such as coffee, could push prices back up.
In recent months the price of coffee has fallen slowly, and by last week it was back at $3 a pound.
'But when you think of the weeks ahead, with Trump and tariffs and exchange rates, you just don't know where it's going to go,' she says.
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Despite the price of coffee soaring to global highs this year, Dowling suggests coffee may be an affordable luxury for younger people.
'Where people have disposable income is in colleges and universities – they are more likely to spend income than save for a rainy day.'
And that generation, she says, is driving another massive sea-change – the cold brew.
Coffee lovers under 35 are driving an explosion of iced beverages, a new report by UK-based coffee syrup manufacturer Beyond the Bean has found. Iced beverage consumption in the UK has surged by 26.7pc since 2023, driven mainly by millennial/Gen Z consumers.
'There is speculation that younger people will eventually revert to hot coffee, but I don't think that will be the case. If we look at sales data on Starbucks in the US, 80pc of their coffee is now served cold.'
The trend could have big implications, both for coffee shops and for producers such as Bewley's.
Cold brew is produced differently than traditional coffee and is supplied as a concentrate.
To meet the expected demand for cold brew here, Bewley's has spent 18 months sourcing a cold brew product to bring to the Irish coffee market.
The Bewley's Columbian Fairtrade Cold Brew process involves coffee grounds being slowly steeped in cool water, which extracts a less acidic flavour from the bean, says Dowling.
'It's moving fast from a low base, and 50pc of Gen Z are now saying they will drink cold all year round,' she says.
'We're working with a partner right now but it is our ambition to invest in our own business to produce a cold brew. But it's a very different process and it'd be like setting up a whole new factory.'