June 26 - 2021

Supply 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.