A Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) market report indicates the commodity fetched Sh37,740 for a 50-kilogramme bag in the sale, down from Sh39,200 in the last week’s auction.
The NCE said the declining value is a result of sellers offering a mix of both low and high-quality coffee as the current season comes to a close.
Coffee prices fell by three percent at this week’s auction in Nairobi, the third straight weekly decline attributed to lower quality beans on offer for sale.
A Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) market report indicates the commodity fetched Sh37,740 for a 50-kilogramme bag in the sale, down from Sh39,200 in the last week’s auction.
The NCE said the declining value is a result of sellers offering a mix of both low and high-quality coffee as the current season comes to a close, with the main season crop yet to hit the trading floor in sufficient volumes.
The crop coming to the auction at the moment is from eastern and parts of western Kenya but it has come to an end with only a few batches of lower quality remaining.
The auction has been running intermittently since the beginning of the new crop year in October because of a shortage of beans in the market occasioned by reduced supplies from the farmers.
The value of the commodity is, however, expected to pick in the coming days, as the NCE projects the volumes of the main season coffee from central Kenya will increase and the end-of-season lower quality beans from the western Kenya crop running out.
However, the auction says that any price above Sh30,000 is still impressive at this time when the supply of the main crop is yet to peak.
In the 10 months to October, coffee exports earned the country Sh24.1 billion ($214 million), a 16 percent increase from the Sh20.9 billion ($186 million) the cash crop fetched in the corresponding period in 2020.
The higher earnings have been boosted by improved global prices following a fall in production in the world’s leading producer Brazil, where frost has ruined the crop.
Currently, the price of coffee at the New York Exchange, which is used as a benchmark for all the world prices, is at a high of 244 US cents per pound from 127.30 cents in January.
