The system is broken
Yesterday, 6th July 2026, the commodity price of coffee had its biggest single-day increase in history. A whopping 16.9% in one day! This isn't Bitcoin or the latest meme trade, but a commodity that has been listed on the US market for 145 years.
Rewind 5 weeks and prices were 40% lower, Brazil (the world's largest coffee exporter) was expecting a bumper crop, and prices were plummeting. Bad weather has now interrupted the harvest, so prices are going bananas again.
Higher prices might seem great for the farmer, but they rarely see the benefit, having signed forward payment contracts many months ago. They're also facing higher fertilizer and logistics costs, coupled with unpredictable weather patterns.
So who's the real winner? I recently read that only 35% of people who trade coffee on the Commodities market actually work in coffee; the rest are speculators, hedgers, investors. Money men!
Clifftop is a tiny fish in a big sea when it comes to volume or influence, but the long-term vision is to move away from this system and start building relationships with importers and direct farmers that offer greater transparency and cut-out the speculators entirely.
I think we're all guilty of viewing coffee as an everyday product, but a deeper look into the supply chain and processing involved, maybe we should view it akin to an exotic luxury product. Paying a premium to the producers directly involved in making this delicious drink and not people looking at graphs and pressing a buy or sell button
That's my rant over,