Coffee price stays flat on fewer premium grade beans offers

Coffee prices at the auction remained flat this week on fewer offers of top grade crops.

A market report from the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) indicates the commodity fetched Sh32,508 ($301) for a 50 kilo bag on average, the same price that it attracted last week.

The decline in value was attributed to a drop in quality of the premium grade, which normally plays a crucial role in lifting the total earnings.

However, NCE said the decline was negligible and that the prices were still impressive for the last two as they are still trading above $300 at this time of the year, which is normally charachterised with low earnings.

The auction is facing a shortage of quality beans as the short crop season is nearly coming to an end with the impressive earnings being lifted by high global prices.

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 over 200 cents per pound from 144 in April when the auction was going for recess, in what has also helped to keep the prices up.

The crop coming to the auction at the moment is being supplied from Eastern and parts of western Kenya and it is supposed to run the auction all the way to November when the main season’s produce is expected to get to the market.

Kenya’s coffee output dipped 18 percent last year on lower crop yields, the Economic Survey 2021 shows.

The output was recorded at 36,900 tonnes in the 2019/20 season, down from 45,000 tonnes the previous year.

During the period, coffee production by cooperatives decreased by 16.2 percent while that of estates likewise decreased by 22 percent in 2020.