Why Your Coffee May Keep Getting More Expensive — and Don’t Expect Prices to Fall Anytime Soon

If you’ve been hoping for cheaper coffee soon, I’ve got some not-so-pleasant news. Coffee prices aren’t about to slump back down — and one of the world’s iconic Italian roasters, illycaffé, actually expects to raise prices again early next year.

Here’s what’s going on behind the scenes:

☕ Coffee Costs Are Still Ridiculously High

Even though the United States recently cut tariffs on Brazilian coffee imports — and Brazil is the biggest coffee producer on the planet — wholesale costs for green coffee beans (especially Arabica) are still near historic highs. That means roasters are still paying a lot more for raw beans than they used to.

In fact, illycaffé has already raised prices twice this year, and CEO Cristina Scocchia says the company plans another increase starting in January. She explains that there’s only so much of these high costs the company can absorb — and they’ve pretty much reached that limit.

📈 Why Prices Haven’t Come Down

There are a few reasons the hoped-for price drop hasn’t materialised:

Tariff cuts help — but only a little. Even after the U.S. eased import duties on Brazilian coffee, bean prices barely budged and remain close to record levels.

Poor global harvests last season pushed prices up. Weather, crop yields, and supply chain disruption have all played a part — which means beans remain expensive to buy in the first place.

Coffee retail prices often lag behind commodity costs. It can take months — sometimes up to a year — before changes in raw bean prices show up on supermarket shelves or café menus.

Even Illy’s own forecast suggests green bean prices might stabilise sometime in the second half of next year, around $2.80–$3.00 per pound (£4.5 - £5.3), but that’s still above the five-year average — so we’re not talking about a sudden drop back to “normal.”

💡 So What Does That Mean for Your Morning Brew?

Here’s the short version:

Expect coffee prices to stay high for a while.

Roasters like illy (and likely others too) will pass rising costs on to consumers rather than keep shrinking their margins.

Even with tariff relief and hopeful market chatter, any price relief at grocery stores or cafés will be slow — if it comes at all.

And yet, demand hasn’t really fallen — people are still drinking coffee. The market seems to be shrugging off the pain for now, which unfortunately gives companies less pressure to cut prices.