Waiting patiently for her Opus coffee order, Julianne LoFurno, 21, said caffeinated confections are a part of her daily routine.
She said her daily caffeine fix, dating back to her time in high school, is a combination of necessity and comfort.
“I have maybe two to three cups every day,” LoFurno said
But the price of coffee globally is at an all-time high and is expected to keep rising.
Arabica and Robusta, the plants from which most coffee in the U.S. is derived, have seen a drastic increase in the price per bag. With Arabica coffee futures rising to around $3.9 per pound, according to trading economics, peaking in mid-February. The shift in cost weighs heaviest on the price-per-bag of coffee.
Changes in coffee production can partially be attributed to a change in the global climate, according to the International Coffee Organization. The ICO Composite Indicator Price in January 2025 saw a 3.5% increase from December 2024.
Droughts and deforestation in major coffee production countries, like Brazil and Vietnam, have caused global coffee bean exports to decrease 20.9% from December 2023 to December 2024.
Sweetwater Organic Coffee Company, a wholesale organic coffee roaster, supplies regional grocery chains, food cooperatives and individual customers with beans through their online store.
Since their first container of Guatemalan coffee was imported in 1998, Sweetwater has expanded its partnership to farmers in countries including Colombia, Honduras, Laos and Ethiopia.
Sweetwater’s trade network involves premiums for quality, organic certification and relationships with individual farmers.
Bill Harris knows the coffee trade intimately. Harris, CFO of Sweetwater Organic Coffee Company located in Gainesville, Florida and its sister company Café Campesino in Americus, Georgia, has spent nearly three decades getting to know South American farmers and conducting fair trade with them.
To Harris, the coffee trade is about these relationships.
“It's generally thinking of business beyond just the business transaction,” Harris said, “but really trying to have an impact on their life and on their community.”
Sweetwater Organic Coffee Company’s import prices have increased by almost $2 a pound on the exporting side since December. With production prices high, Harris is preparing to enter into uncharted territory.
“The last two months have been unlike anything I've seen in 26 years of doing this,” he said
Harris has begun hosting Zoom calls with customers to explain the rapid changes in the coffee market and has flown to Honduras to aid suppliers by better understanding the challenges farmers face.
“In April, we are going to take a price increase that may be unprecedented,” Harris said. “We're not used to seeing coffee move up dollars per pound so quickly.”
Matt Earley, director of sales, marketing and community for Sweetwater Organic Coffee Company, predicts the price increase, while unprecedented, shouldn't impact consumers too much.
“When there have been economic downturns, what we have noticed is that people don't stop drinking coffee. Most don't even stop drinking good coffee,” he said, “but they sometimes adjust their habits of where they're getting their coffee.”
Catherine Tucker, a professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, teaches a course called “Coffee Culture, Production and Markets”.
Tucker has worked first-hand with coffee producers in western Honduras and believes coffee will always be available, though it may not be of the highest quality because of climate change.
Tucker worries that coffee farmers, who often work long hours in dangerous conditions for little pay, will ultimately suffer the most.
“Right now, we're just going in the wrong direction in so many things,” she said, “and if the only thing that consumers care about in terms of coffee is a low price, then that kind of demand is just going to put pressure on keeping the price low.”
The conscious growth of nutrient-rich companion plants, shade-providing trees and other plants for germination would be ideal investments, but require time and money that many coffee farmers don’t have. This would be more possible for farmers if coffee prices were more stable, but prices often do not cover production costs.
Improved conditions for coffee plants would help them be more resilient to extreme weather, but Tucker said focusing on cheaper production only makes the problem worse.
“I think in the current context of the world's leaders, most of them don't care about that,” she said.
“The reality is that people do better…and then they work harder if they feel that situations are fair, if they have enough to eat, they have safe places to live, if their environments are secure, and if they feel like society is helping them, not just exploiting them,” Tucker said.
For LoFurno, even if the price of coffee goes up, she said she would rather switch to brewing at home with a Keurig than kick the habit altogether.