Brazil’s No 1 coffee exporter reports lower 2023 shipments

Brazil’s Cooxupe, the country’s No. 1 coffee exporter and the world’s largest coffee growers co-op, reported on Wednesday a large fall in 2023 shipments due to low prices and logistics bottlenecks.

Cooxupe said in its annual report that it had shipped 4.5 million 60-kg bags of arabica coffee in 2023 versus 6.8 million bags in 2022.

Total revenues fell to 6.4 billion reais ($1.28 billion) from 10.1 billion reais in 2022. It said that associated farmers decided to hold on to their coffee and not sell much during several months of last year when arabica coffee prices fell to around 700 reais ($140.22) per bag.

Some foreign clients also asked the co-op to postpone shipments due to high freight costs and tight container availability, co-op president Carlos Augusto Rodrigues de Melo told reporters in an earnings call.

The situation changed this year as arabica coffee prices recovered and rose to around 1,000 reais, Melo said, leading farmers to be much more active in sales. The co-op estimates that farmers sold around 1 million bags in the last 60 days, as they also seek to finance coming fieldwork costs as harvest approaches.

Melo said Cooxupe, which currently only works with arabica coffee, would not rule out starting operations with robusta coffee as production of that type of coffee rises at a fast pace in Brazil.

“The spike in robusta prices is helping to improve arabica prices, something that never happened before,” he said. ($1 = 4.9921 reais)