For years, specialty coffees have been priced based on the commodity market value or C futures, causing the decline in the production of washed and high quality coffees worldwide, as a direct consequence of lack of financial incentives to farmers and misrepresenting the actual value of these coffees. Despite market's high demand for Specialty coffees, the tendency in coffee producing countries is towards the production of higher coffee volumes rather than quality among farmers. So far the only way coffee farmers have been able to make a profit has been by scaling production. Unfortunately, this tendency is jeopardizing the future of the specialty coffee industry, that depends on higher cost of production, focus to detail, highly skilled labor and time consuming processing methods.
To save the specialty coffee industry, it is paramount to find a new way to price specialty coffees, so in December 2018, the first version of the "Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide" (www.transactionguide.coffee) was released.
In this study, researchers at Transparent Trade Coffee (Emory University) and several
roasters, supporters, exporters and importers join efforts to create a guide to better price specialty coffees based on quality. Coffee transaction data from influential donor members of the specialty coffee industry was made available for the study.
The Specialty coffee pricing tool application has been made from the results of this study, with the sole intention to make it more accessible, practical and easy to use for farmers, coffee buyers, brokers or anyone who wants to have a more accurate price assessment of specialty coffees.