The second auction at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) since the resumption from recess in April failed to take place this week due to shortage of the produce in the market.
The NCE resumed trading last week but had warned of a shortage of coffee in the market because of cold weather that has affected the drying of the commodity in factories.
The second auction was to take place on Tuesday but there were insufficient volumes to allow trading as there are minimum number of bags required for sale to happen.
“We did not have an auction this week because there was not enough coffee for the trading. We shall resume next week,” said Daniel Mbithi, chief executive at NCE.
The crop coming to the auction currently is from Eastern and parts of western Kenya.
It is expected to run the trading until November when the main season’s produce, largely from Central Kenya, is expected to get to the market.
The exchange was targeting at least 10,000 bags of the beverage when it resumed last week, however, it received 8,000 bags to jump start the trading.
The auction normally requires a minimum of 10,000 bags to go ahead.
The low supply is however helping push up prices, which jumped 27 percent last week—marking one of the best prices realised this year—with the NCE also projecting the good earnings to be sustained for some time due to high quality beans coming being supplied into the exchange. The commodity sold at Sh27,000 for a 50 kilogramme bag last week, up from Sh21,276 in the last sale before the auction took a break in April.
Currently, the price of coffee at the New York Exchange, which is used as a benchmark for all the world prices, stands at 149.75 cents per pound, compared to 144 cents at the end of April when the auction was going on recess.
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