By May Angel and Alexander Marrow
LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. coffee lovers hoping President Donald Trump's tariff rollbacks last month will soon lower the cost of their daily caffeine hit had better think again.
The widespread import tariffs imposed by Trump mostly over the summer, which included top coffee producers such as Brazil, boosted the price of raw coffee beans. But the added costs are mostly still filtering through supply chains and have yet to reach consumers, according to brokers,
traders and industry experts.
High U.S. retail coffee prices have, in other words, been driven mostly by last year's coffee bean supply shortages, which spurred a doubling in raw bean prices in the 12 months to March.
"Most of the (retail) price increases we've seen so far are not in response to tariffs. (They're) associated with the record high (raw bean) market that we've been in since last year," said independent coffee analyst Christopher Feran.
Feran and other industry experts estimate it takes at least nine months for raw bean prices to filter through to coffee drinkers, partly due to roasting times and price negotiations, meaning it could be well into next year before prices retreat.
Coffee drinkers in the U.S., the world's biggest coffee consumer, will have to swallow higher prices for longer. And the White House will have a tricky job trying to cool food inflation before the U.S. 2026 November midterms.
Trump, under pressure from Democratic wins in New Jersey, New York and Virginia linked to voter frustration over rising food prices, last month rolled back "reciprocal" tariffs of between 10-41% on over 200 food items that cannot easily be grown in America, such as coffee.
He also exempted non-native food items from an additional 40% tariff on imports from Brazil, which supplies the U.S. with around a third of its beans.
'COFFEE PRICES RISE MORE QUICKLY THAN THEY FALL'
Raw bean prices account for at least 40% of the cost of producing a bag of roast and ground coffee. They rose sharply last year as the market was unable to bounce back from three seasons of production deficit linked to adverse weather.
Most industry experts expect a coffee production surplus in the current and upcoming 2025/26 and 2026/27 October to September seasons which should, alongside the tariff removal, soften raw bean prices and eventually feed through to U.S. consumers.
But this will take time, analysts say, because U.S. roasters typically hold about two to three months' worth of bean stocks on average and need another two to three months to roast and package their products.
They also tend to negotiate prices with retailers only on a quarterly basis.
In other words, very little of the 18.8% rise in U.S. retail coffee prices in the year to November is due to tariffs.
And the near 35% rise in raw bean prices between August and November when most of Trump's tariffs were in place, is still to hit coffee on supermarket shelves. Also, since Trump's tariff reversal, raw bean prices have fallen just 6%.
“Coffee prices rise more quickly than they fall," said Steven Walter Thomas, the CEO of mid-sized, U.S.-based importer Lucatelli Coffee, pointing to the muted price reaction since the tariff removal.
SLOWER RATE OF PRICE INCREASES
Trump's tariff rollback is, however, slowing down the rate of price increases near term.
In late November, days after the tariffs on Brazilian coffee imports were removed, J.M. Smucker, the parent company of Folgers coffee, said it would no longer consider winter price rises to cover its tariff costs.
It said it was maintaining a $0.50 "unfavourable impact" on this fiscal year’s earnings per share as a result.
"We’re very pleased that tariffs are gone, but it’s not enough to bring this market down," said the head of a mid-sized U.S. roaster.
He said that, if anything, while his firm is done raising prices, he expects large roasters which negotiate less frequently with retailers to still raise prices next year.
"(Raw bean) prices are elevated, the consumer doesn't realise this, they think only about the tariff."
(Reporting by May Angel and Alexander Marrow. Editing by Jane Merriman)
