Poor Farmer

Green Mountain Rises 7.2%, Most in Month, on Nestle Speculation By Ian Thomson Bloomberg October 12, 2010 Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., the seller of Keurig single-cup brewers, rose the most in a month in U.S. trading on speculation the company may be a target of Nestle SA, the world’s largest food company. Green Mountain climbed $1.94, or 7.2 percent, to $28.81 at 4:30 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped 23 percent since Sept. 27, the day before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it was investigating accounting errors at the company. Speculation that Nestle would begin a takeover bid for Green Mountain has also moved the stock in the past, Scott Van Winkle, an analyst in Boston with Canaccord Genuity Inc., said in a telephone interview. “Nestle has had enormous success with automated espresso in Europe and they can’t replicate that in the U.S.,” said Van Winkle, who has a $40 price target for Green Mountain. “Keurig is t...

Chemusto, shows UCDA officials the effect of the leaf rust disease (Photo: Courtesy of The New Vision) By Ronald Kalyango Reuters via The New Vision October 10, 2010 COFFEE farmers in Bugisu sub-region, affected by the leaf rust and coffee berry diseases have asked the Government to save them. “If the Government does not intervene now, we shall not export any crop next year. This is our top income-earner,” said Wilson Chemusto, a farmer in Kapchorwa district. Chemusto was on Friday briefing officials from the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, led by Henry Ngabirano, the managing director, during a field tour of the affected gardens in the district. “We are looking for solutions to save the country’s coffee sector,” said Ngabirano. Leaf rust, which farmers said broke out in June, has spread throughout Mbale, Sironko, Bududa, Kapchorwa, Bulambuli, Kwen and Manafwa districts. It mainly affects coffee leaves, turning them into pale-yellow on the surface and orange beneat...

By David Suzuki Winnipeg Free Press October 06, 2010 Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil. And as with oil, the massive scale of production necessary to meet our insatiable demand for coffee results in an enormous ecological footprint. According the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, more than seven million tonnes of coffee will be produced worldwide this year. The thirst for coffee is growing rapidly in developing countries, like Indonesia, where coffee beans are grown and exported. And while citizens of wealthier nations are cutting their coffee consumption, people in Africa and South America are drinking more - thanks to increasing household incomes, population growth, changing tastes, and successful marketing. The U.S.-based Starbucks coffee chain has even announced that it will open a shop in post-conflict Algeria, with plans to expand to 30 stores in Africa over the next two years. With so many people drinking coffee (63 per cent of Cana...

Exporters are saying the Nairobi auction is offering quicker sales and better prices as the goal of direct sales proves difficult. Photo/REUTERS via Business Daily By George Omondi Business Daily October 4, 2010 International commodity brokers have limited the direct sale of coffee introduced three years ago. Many exporters have preferred to operate from the weekly auction, saying they had been met by an intricate web of intermediaries in the quest to penetrate the international markets. The Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) offers quicker sales, they said. “Direct sales remains a great idea but players who have tried it realised that the auction’s transparent price discovery system often yields better value for their produce,” said the Sasini Ltd manager, Dr Ceaser Mwangi. Under the central auction system, which operates on a willing-buyer-willing-seller terms, Dr Mwangi said the buyer who places bids has a ready market for the quantity demanded. Local industry players, ...

By Harrison Freund The Cavalier Daily  (University of Virginia)   September 29, 2010 Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is a vertically integrated company with two business lines. Vertical integration means that the company controls all stages of processing, except for growing the crop. GMCR buys the coffee and then processes, roasts, warehouses and sells it. The first business line sells the Keurig single-serve coffee maker along with its individual coffee, tea and hot chocolate pods called K-Cups. Keurig coffee-makers are sold to individual consumers through mass-market and department stores. GMCR also sell Keurigs directly to offices and hotels. The second part of the business is the Specialty Coffee Business Unit, which sells coffee beans, ground coffee and Keurigs to grocery and retail stores. Overall, the Keurigs and K-Cups account for 52 percent of net sales, while the SCBU accounts for 47.6 percent. GMCR copies and benefits from the razor-and-blade business model cr...

"The price of green coffee beans has a chance to break out to historic high prices in 2011... While I am bullish on coffee in the intermediate and long terms, I believe there is a very real possibility that we'll see a pullback in the coming days or weeks. Once that occurs, however, I would urge investors to take a really careful look at coffee as a top profit play, particularly given the demand, hoarding and weather-related catalysts - all of which are bullish for coffee prices." - Money Morning Contributing Editor Jack Barnes By Kerri Shannon Money Morning September 26, 2010 Starbucks Corp. (Nasdaq: SBUX) has announced that it will charge more for many of its drinks to compensate for surging coffee prices, which have climbed to their highest level in 13. The famous coffee chain announced Wednesday it would make "targeted price adjustments on certain beverages in certain markets," according to a press release on its Web site. Starbucks said it tried ...

Worldwide coffee consumption has risen at about twice the rise in supply. Another factor boosting prices is consumer insistence on 'specialty coffees,' a trend Colombian farmers are tapping into. By Chris Kraul Los Angeles Times September 25, 2010 These are golden days for coffee grower Segundo Cardona and thousands of other farmers in Colombia. Global prices for his beans are close to 14-year highs and according to some analysts, may remain at or near these levels for years to come. The reasons include less than optimal harvests in top coffee-producing countries Brazil and Vietnam and growing consumption in major coffee-producing countries Brazil and Mexico as well as in traditional tea-drinking nations, including China, India and Russia. Worldwide coffee consumption has grown an average of about 2% a year over the last decade, double the 1% annual average increase in supply. "It is a classic market imbalance," said Rabobank agricultural economist Guilh...