Via transparenttradecoffee.org: In the first quarter of 2015, the SCRPI rose by 6.2 percent. Overall, the average price charged for roasted coffee at the end of March, 2015 was $22.01 per pound. This breaks down into an average of $16.51 per pound for the lowest-priced coffees (+0.2 percent), and an average of $27.52 for the highest-priced coffees (+10.1 percent) sold on the websites of the Index roasters.**
While retail coffee prices continued to rise through the first quarter of 2015, the corresponding ICO Composite Price for green coffee fell to $1.27 per pound. With the steady decline since September, 2014, the ICO price is currently just 7.2 percent of the overall SCRPI average.
* To generate the SCRPI, we track a roster of “blue chip” coffee roasters; those that set standards in the North American specialty coffee market. We focus on roasters whose coffees receive the lion’s share of attention from Coffee Review, and those who receive many of the Good Food Awards and Roast Magazine Awards. To capture both ends of the specialty coffee market, we visit the website of each Index roaster quarterly and record information about their lowest and highest-priced coffees; ignoring the very high-priced Blue Mountain, Kona, Geisha/Esmeralda and Civet/Kopi Luwak coffees. In September, 2014, the number of SCRPI roasters fell from 60 to 59, as Green Mountain Coffee was acquired by Keurig, which does not sell roasted coffee in bags. In March, 2015, the number was 58 because the Supreme Bean website is under construction.
Click here for information about the origins of the Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index.
** In March, 2015, the average retail price among the highest-priced coffees was influenced by the introduction of a new group of high-end coffees by Barrington Roasters. To minimize the effect of these introductions, the March, 2015 SCRPI is calculated using the third-highest priced Barrington coffee.
