June 26 - 2021
Coffee Geography MagazineSupply chain challenges are causing cutbacks to caffeine
worldwide, and it’s impacting Austin, Texas. Signs in front of a store noted
explaining the shortage of coffee in their store.
“We
are experiencing temporary supply shortages of some of our products. Specific
items will vary by market and store, and some stores will experience outages of
various items at the same time. We apologize for the inconvenience and are
working quickly and closely with our supply chain vendors to restock items as
soon as possible,”
The coffee shortage is already claimed Mozart Coffee. One reason behind
the coffee bean shortage is due to drought in places like Brazil, which is the
world’s biggest producer.
University of Texas supply chain expert Edward Anderson
explained that countries are dipping into their stockpiles to make up for
that. “So we’re getting our coffee, but we’re running out of our stockpile,”
Another bottle neck is the shortage of shipping containers
all around the globe.
“Because
of the surge in demand post-COVID and congestion in ports, there’s a shortage
of those and without those… can’t transport coffee,” Anderson said.
The impacts on coffee crops from things like bugs and
droughts in the past, but this time the shipping container challenges have
pushed prices up across the board.
So
far, coffee drinkers are still enjoying their beverages for the same price; it
just may have a slightly different taste that most people probably won’t notice
unless they are the picky one for the best specialty beans. Off course there will be new blending substitutions in single origin coffees, and
there are going to be some flavor offsets.