Coffee roasters in Brazil have turned up their nose at the government's offer to sell 50,000 bags of old beans from its public stocks even as supplies grow harder to find and coffee prices keep climbing. The government was looking for 460.20 reais ($278.57) per 60-kg bag of the coffee which was picked in the record 2002/03 harvest in its second attempt in as many weeks to sell the lot. It plans to sell 103,000 bags of coffee from that crop.
"The price was the failing. The government has put a (new coffee) price tab on coffee from 2002/2003," said Carlos Amaral, from the A Rural brokerage in the southern coffee growing state of Parana. The asking price was not far behind the 473.95 reais average price for 2010-crop coffee sold from the country's largest co-operative, Cooxupe, in February.
New York coffee futures ended trading nearly 2 percent higher at $2.7530 per lb on Thursday. The global market is in relatively short supply of higher quality arabicas and world top coffee grower Brazil will not harvest more until May. Older coffees are usually blended in with fresher produce and can sometimes be useful in taming newer coffees with an overly-sharp taste.
Flavio Ribeiro from the Flavour coffee brokerage in Rio de Janeiro said that unlike exporters scouring the market for now-scarce mild coffees, local roasters were still able to find the less expensive qualities they need on the local market.
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