Dubai – Ali Alzakary
The global coffee industry has spent the past few years navigating one disruption after another—from pandemic shutdowns and climate volatility in producing countries to freight crises that reshaped global shipping routes. As the global coffee market grapples with volatility—production reaching around 175 million bags in 2025 while costs continue to rise due to climate pressures and freight disruptions—the ongoing conflict in the Middle East is adding a new layer of uncertainty to an already fragile supply chain.
Coffee moves through one of the most complex trade networks in the food and beverage sector. Green beans travel from farms across Latin America, Africa and Asia through international ports and maritime corridors before reaching roasters, cafés and consumers. Any disruption to shipping routes, insurance costs or regional logistics can quickly ripple across the industry. For specialty coffee—where freshness, tight margins and long-term sourcing relationships define the business—the impact can be felt even faster.
To understand how the sector is reacting, we spoke with Kim Thompson, Co-Founder at RAW Coffee Company in Dubai. From monitoring shipments already at sea to preparing technical support systems for cafés, Thompson explains how roasters are navigating rising costs, uncertain logistics and a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape.
In this conversation, she offers a clear view of what café operators are worrying about right now, how long menu prices can realistically hold, and why the coffee industry’s resilience often comes down to relationships built across the supply chain.
- Has the “fear factor” kicked in yet? Are you seeing cafés or hotels panic-buying and stockpiling coffee to guard against a potential shortage?
Not really. The reality of the café industry is that most operators are managing week-to-week cash flow, not building strategic stockpiles. Right now the conversations we’re having are far more about cost control than hoarding inventory.
The other factor is freshness. Speciality coffee isn’t a commodity that sits in a warehouse for months. We roast weekly and deliver fresh, so stockpiling doesn’t really fit how quality coffee businesses operate.
Our expectation is that the real response, if there is one, will likely come after Eid al-Fitr, once operators have had time to assess the geopolitical situation and think through their own coping strategies. At the moment, people are watching closely rather than panicking.
- The coffee you’re roasting today was bought at pre-war prices — how long can you hold your current menu prices before new logistics costs force your hand?
The uncomfortable truth is that price pressure in coffee started well before this conflict. The industry has already been absorbing significant increases at origin, higher processing costs, and rising freight prices for the past two years.
We have already had to adjust pricing once, simply because the economics of producing high-quality coffee have changed globally.
If shipping routes tighten or logistics costs spike again because of regional instability, there’s only so much the supply chain can absorb. Roasters can cushion the impact for a period of time, but eventually the math catches up with everyone.
Coffee has historically been underpriced for the amount of work and risk involved in producing it. What we are seeing now is the global market slowly correcting that reality.
- Are there specific “origins” or specialty grades that are now effectively “cut off” due to their transit routes through the conflict zone?
At the moment nothing is completely cut off, but logistics has become far more complicated overnight.
We currently have multiple containers on the water and are actively tracking them while exploring alternative routing options that avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
In many ways it feels like a return to the early COVID-19 playbook—scenario planning, contingency routing, and leaning heavily on relationships across the supply chain to keep things moving.
The specialty coffee industry is surprisingly resilient because it’s built on long-term relationships with producers, exporters and logistics partners. When things get unpredictable, those relationships become incredibly valuable.
- What’s the plan for equipment and spare parts? Is there a risk that a broken espresso machine could stay down because of shipping delays?
Equipment supply is definitely something we’re watching closely, but fortunately we forecasted and planned ahead. We have several containers on the water carrying both commercial and domestic machines, so supply may get tight but we’re not walking into this empty-handed.
More importantly, we have invested heavily in our technical infrastructure. We run a full in-house service department with extensive spare parts inventory, qualified technicians, and swap-out machines available for our commercial partners.
In practical terms, if a café’s machine goes down, we’re structured to keep them operating. The bigger challenge in this industry is rarely the machine itself—it’s the global logistics that sit behind everything.
