Worldwide coffee shortage causes coffee prices to soar.

Various challenges in Brazil and global shipping problems have caused a shortage in the availability of coffee.

2021 was a terrible year for Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer. First, the country experienced one of the worst droughts in a century and later in the year. They also experienced three consecutive incidents of severe frost, which is
unusual for a tropical country like Brazil.

Francois Dreyer, the owner of Heavenly Coffees, spoke to Maroela Media about this issue.

He told Maroela Media that Brazil's storerooms had been emptied and buffer supplies were also in jeopardy. There was also a labor unrest in Colombia which delayed shipments for three months.

This inevitably caused a stock shortage and as with agricultural products, many of which are considered commodities, the market reacted strongly and especially larger companies made excessive purchases.

This caused the price to rise sharply and coffee prices to fall in all the producing countries.

He also told Maroela Media that, along with that, the restrictions caused shipping costs to South Africa to become much more expensive and our weak exchange rate also contributed to that.

In South Africa, we see increases from 39% to 54%.

Apart from the price increases, the availability of coffee is very variable due to the global shipping problems. Heavenly Coffees has been running for ten years now and we often experience supply problems, but this is the worst one we have ever experienced.

Many people do not realize that coffee is an agricultural product and can run out.

Read the article on Maroela Media for Francois' full interview.