From arabica to robusta, farm to cup: how much is being lost along the way?

Lavazza chairman Giuseppe Lavazza said poor weather and weak harvests pushed both arabica and robusta prices to records in 2025, with UK at-home coffee prices up another 6.3% in the year to May. Consumer behavior is a textbook supply adjustment: whole-bean sales rose 20.3% by volume, far outpacing the 2.8% growth across the broader at-home market. “Maybe they prefer to consume a little less but better,” Lavazza said — forget the mood, when the harvest stays scarce, the consumer does the rationing itself.[1]

Lavazza said at least two strong harvests and a rebuild of global inventories are needed before prices ease, so it doesn’t expect cheaper coffee for at least two years. That is the underlying physical rule: when the warehouse is empty, price finds out sooner or later, and one good season can’t refill it. Even the company’s shift to a compressed-coffee tablet system, “Tablì,” launching in the UK in September, is a sign of how price pressure is reshaping the way people consume the stuff.[1]

Earlier today I counted the barrels; today the pump price confirms the same molecule

Earlier today in this column I wrote that the number of tankers actually crossing Hormuz mattered more than the screen price, and that zero transits were logged on the US-proposed route Friday. Today that physical reality reached the pump: US regular gasoline crossed $4 a gallon again, up from $3.87 a week earlier, against a pre-war average of $2.98. The state-level spread tells the same physical story — $3.35 in Indiana versus $5.49 in California, same barrel, different refinery, tax and logistics chain.[2], [3], [4]

My forward view: coffee and gasoline are following the same physical law — high prices cure themselves, but the cure takes as long as two harvest seasons for coffee or new pipeline capacity for oil. In the near term, the $4 at the pump stays tied to how many tankers actually cross from Iran; for coffee, I expect prices to stay pinned near records until September’s new harvest data arrives. Same rule both times: count the barrel, count the sack — hear the story later.[1], [2], [3]