High coffee prices speeds shipment flow in Brazil

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Brazilian coffee exports in the 23/24 season (July/June) totaled 47.4 mln bags and reached a new record. The data are from Cecafé and include both green and processed coffee. This corresponds to a 33% increase compared to the volume shipped in the previous season. The strong performance was driven by shipments of Brazilian conillon coffee, given the lack of robusta in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, shipments of arabica increased 17% and totaled 35.5 mln bags. This was below the volume exported in the 2020/21 season, a record year for production in Brazil, in which the country exported nearly 37 mln bags of arabica coffee alone. Conillon shipments stood out, having totaled 8.3 mln bags, a new record. Just to give an idea, the best previous performance was also in the 20/21 season when conillon shipments totaled 4.7 mln bags. The high price and the external buying interest helped growers to empty warehouses, which were quite full at the beginning of the year. In the combination of arabica and conillon, Brazil shipped 43.69 mln bags of green coffee, well above the 41.69 mln in 2020/21. The performance could have been better if it were not for the weak performance of soluble coffee, which accumulated shipments of only 3.66 mln bags, well below the record of 4 mln bags achieved in previous seasons.

Besides the volume of coffee shipped, the performance of revenue obtained from sales deserves to be highlighted, which reached USD 9.8 bln, according to Cecafé. This represents a 21% increase in revenue from external coffee sales. This financial growth arises from the increase in international coffee prices, which have been high since the 2021 frost, above the world’s average.

In July, shipments totaled 3.77 mln bags, and the average price per bag exported was USD 247.08, according to Cecafé. This value is significantly higher than the USD 210 registered in the same period last year and even higher than the five-year average, which was around USD 166 per bag. The appreciation of the prices of coffee exported by Brazil is notable, starting with the arabica price hike after the 2021 frost. This trend was reinforced by the increase in the price of robusta from April 2024 due to problems in Vietnam’s production along with the shift of global demand toward Brazilian conillon.