Per-Pound Prices Among 57 ‘Blue Chip’ Roasters Dip 6.3% in Q3

Image courtesy of TTC

The Transparent Trade Coffee project has released its Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (SCRPI) for the third quarter of 2016, finding a 6.3 percent decrease from the Q2 index price, and 3.4 percent year-over-year increase over the Q3 2015 price.

Transparent Trade and the SCRPI were developed by researchers at the Social Enterprise @ Goizueta Business School program within Emory University. We first reported on the project in April of last year, keeping an eye on the index and the group’s insights ever since.

In short, the SCRPI tracks the per-pound prices of coffees sold online directly to consumers from approximately 57 “blue chip” roasters, a group largely comprised of past Good Food Awards winners, highly rated submitters to Coffee Review, and past Roast Magazine Roaster of the Year winners.

According to TTC’s data, the average price for roasted specialty coffee at the end of September 2016 was $22.46 per pound. To further break it down, the group found an average of $16.30 per pound for the lowest-priced coffees (-0.6 percent against Q2), and $28.62 per pound for the highest-priced coffees (-9.2 against Q2) sold on the websites of the SCRPI roasters.**

The year-over-year increase breaks down to a 1.4 percent increase for the lowest-priced coffees, and a 4.6 percent increase for the highest-priced coffees. TTC did note that the Q2 SCRPI was significantly influenced by Blue Bottle Coffee’s online introduction of its limited-edition Yemen Hayma Hussein al-Haba offering, which was priced at $173.33 per roasted pound.

Visit the TTC page for more, including how the SCRPI measured in comparison to the ICO composite indicator price for green coffees.