Page 52 - Tropic Magazine Issue 32

TROPIC • COFFEE

Cost of a cuppa

PRICE RISE
Oliver James of Tattooed Sailor
and Guyala Café explains how
your coffee is priced and why
the cost is probably going to temperatures, slow the ripening process
and protect from ‘coffee sunburn’.
go up. This practice has helped the MacLaughlin

Words: Oliver James family at Skybury Coffee in Mareeba
produce some of Australia’s best cherries.
Mark Dundon from Melbourne’s Seven By co-planting with papaya, the coffee
Seeds, and father of third-wave specialty plants at Skybury thrive.
coffee in Australia, thinks the $7 flat white
is coming. Maybe not this year, or next, We can offset the cost of green cherries by
but here’s why. blending different origins, through which
Climate change is one major reason. So, when you pay $5 for we also achieve specific flavour profiles.
In Brazil a few months ago, an unusual A markup of up to three-fold is required
frost devastated about 10 per cent of your flat white, where does for a five per cent profit margin.
Brazil’s coffee. It pushed the coffee it go? With rising green coffee costs, our two
price conversation into the spotlight, options are to source cheaper beans or
and for good reason – Brazil grows over raise prices. I have always chosen
a third of the world’s coffee, producing the latter. Sourcing quality ingredients
3.48 million tonnes on average per year. is at the heart of my business model.
In comparison, Australia produces Well, from 100 kilograms of freshly Cafes pay wholesale rates for freshly
600 tonnes per year. The recent loss is picked coffee fruit, the yield is about roasted beans of between $25 and
estimated at 348,000 tonnes, or 580 times 18 kilograms of green coffee beans. $35 a kilo. Add milks, sugar, takeaway
what Australia grows. A producer in Ethiopia tells me growing cups, labour, and overheads and in my
With such a massive loss, green coffee fresh cherries costs the equivalent of experience, any cafe selling less than 18
from Brazil has nearly doubled in price AUD 78-90 cents per kilogram. This puts kilos per week will unlikely see profit.
and demand in other growing regions the real cost of purchasing coffee beans So, is the $7 flat white coming? I think
has skyrocketed. This is on top of the at about AUD $5 per kilogram, before so. I have curiously watched the retail
tripling of container shipping costs labour, water, transport, packaging and price of a beer go up to $7, or even $12 and
since last year! dry mill grading costs. higher for crafted brews. It is inevitable,
Higher temperatures are also an issue. At Tattooed Sailor Coffee Roasters, and even necessary for specialty coffee
Mauricio Salaverria is a famous coffee we land Ethiopian coffee for around prices to rise.
producer I met in El Salvador, who’s $12.50 per kilo. A few months ago,
been planting shade cover trees over we could land high-grade Brazilian beans MORE: tattooedsailor.com.au
his coffee for over 15 years to moderate for around $5 per kilo.

Top coffee producing countries

Annual production in tonnes

52 • Tropic • Issue 32