Commodities

Coffee price up 17pc in second week of good run

bithi

NCE chief executive officer Daniel Mbithi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The price of coffee shot up by 17 percent in last week’s trading to mark a second rally in the last two sales on account of high demand.

A market report by the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) indicates that a 50-kilogramme bag of coffee fetched Sh10,300 this week up from Sh8,800 recorded previously.

Officials at NCE say the marginal improvement is attributed to increased demand for the commodity at the auction during the sale.

“We witnessed high demand of the produce at the auction, which helped to lift up the price,” said NCE chief executive officer Daniel Mbithi.

The trading also saw Kenya’s premium coffee grade AA value go up to Sh11,600 a bag compared with Sh10,100 fetched previously.

Low quality coupled with depressed international prices of the commodity in the world market has been pushing down the value of coffee at the auction in the three months from March to May.

The low prices have seen Kenya’s earnings from the produce drop by Sh2.8 billion in April compared with corresponding period last year.

Data from the Coffee Directorate indicates farmers earned Sh9.04 billion last month against Sh11.8 billion realised in the same period in 2018.