Coffee’s recent dizzying rally has been fueled by a lack of insight on future supply and short-term speculation, resulting in pricier brews for consumers, according to Andrea Illy, chairman of Italian roaster Illycaffè. Illy spoke on "The Pulse with Francine Lacqua" on Bloomberg TV.
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Joining us, Andrea Illy, the chairman of illycafe. Thank you for joining us. The price of Arabica is pretty incredible. This could translate into how we pay for our cup of coffee. Does the rally still have room to run?
All-time records, only due to speculation. 70% of the trading is due to investors which have nothing to do with coffee and only buy it to make speculation. In one month, the annual crop is being sold, just to give you the figures.
Due to meteorological adverse effects. Drought in Vietnam and in Brazil last year. It might cause a slight deficit in production. Traders are fighting between each other about the forecast because some say the deficit will not be there. Some others say there will be minimal. And others say there is a structural deficit culminating one quarter of the annual production over five to six years.
More confused, this is made more difficult in this case by the governmental situations. Environmental situations. The deforestation in Europe was postponed. It was supposed to be enforced January 1 of this year. It has been postponed one year. It is not saying this is the solution to only postpone. The threat of tariffs and also some philanthropic agencies like USAID which were very helpful. The G7 initiative came three months ago with its declaration of supporting, promoting a public-private partnership for investing in coffee, resilience and sustainability. This is what we need to do.
We have some rain people following the commodities. They tell me that my cup of coffee could go up by 25% in the next three to four months. Is this a possibility?
It is possible but then the perception of people, consumers, that coffee is expensive. It is not paid if you look at the per serving, the price of coffee is quite low in our basket. We have to consider that with this low price, the 12.5 million – we have to consider this. 30% of the coffee is produced by only 30,000 middle to large growers. The remaining 70% is produced by 12.5 million micro growers in over 40 countries. Half of them living under the poverty threshold. How much are we going to pay for coffee? Is it an ethical price for the whole supply chain? This is something we shall consider in the equation, and we shall also be aware of the value of coffee for our life. It makes you live better and longer. It makes you happier, active, and healthier.
Every year, there are other scientific studies. It is about longevity. It is protective against many cancers and diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and so on.
Illy, A. (2025, February 7). Coffee Prices Could Rise by 25%: Illy Chairman [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104499/
MLA
Andrea Illy. "Coffee Prices Could Rise by 25%: Illy Chairman." Bloomberg Television, 7 Feb. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104499/.
BibTeX
@misc{illy2025_1104499,
author = {Andrea Illy},
title = {Coffee Prices Could Rise by 25\%: Illy Chairman},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {feb},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104499/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
