ICO Puts Global Coffee Market Data in One Interactive Place

ICO Coffee Market Intelligence Platform screenshot.

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) has launched an interactive data platform giving people free access to a range of global market information spanning prices, trade, production, consumption and certified stocks.

The new Coffee Market Intelligence Platform consolidates data previously spread across multiple ICO sources, both public and private. Users can now explore dashboards, tables and an interactive 3D globe.

Expanding Access to ICO Data

The launch represents a notable expansion of public access to data from the ICO, the intergovernmental organization responsible for some widely cited global production, trade and price statistics in the coffee industry. 

“Good data cannot eliminate volatility, but it can reduce uncertainty,” ICO Executive Director Vanúsia Nogueira said in an announcement of the launch, which came this week during the 142nd Session of the International Coffee Council in Geneva, Switzerland. “When stakeholders work from a shared and credible evidence base, they can make better decisions about production, investment, trade, risk management and sustainability.”

The launch comes amid a proliferation of new public coffee data dissemination websites driven by AI that make sweeping promises about market intelligence, yet tend to fail to provide meaningful insights due to a lack of useful data or a basic understanding of the coffee industry. 

The ICO, which was established in 1963, did not say whether the new platform runs on AI, but the tool draws primarily from the organization’s private statistical records, including member-reported trade data and ICO production and consumption estimates.

What’s Shown

The public-facing platform includes the ICO Composite Indicator Price (I-CIP), New York arabica and London robusta futures prices, export and import flows, production and consumption figures and exchange-certified stocks.

The platform’s market overview combines several major indicators on a single dashboard, including global production versus consumption and supply-and-demand balances.

A separate interactive globe allows users to explore trade by origin, destination, coffee form, species and processing method, while other dashboards drill into country-level information and supply-and-demand trends.

The latest full year of data is available free of charge, while historical data and data extraction are available only to ICO members and subscribers. 

The ICO currently counts 49 members representing 75 countries. On the producing side, 42 exporting countries are members, including Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Ethiopia, while notable non-members include Uganda and Guatemala.

On the consuming side, the ICO has seven importing members: the European Union, representing its 27 member states, plus Japan, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Tunisia and the UK. The most conspicuous absence is the United States, which withdrew from the International Coffee Agreement in 2018. Canada, China, South Korea and Australia are also outside the importing membership.

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