The Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (SCRPI)* is a companion initiative to the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. It was developed by researchers at Emory University to track the retail prices charged by a representative group of North American specialty coffee roasters.
In the first quarter of 2024, the SCRPI fell 7.8%. The average price for roasted specialty coffees at the end of March 2024 was $30.24 per pound. This breaks down into an average of $20.46 per pound for the lowest-priced coffees (+0.8%), and $40.03 for the highest-priced coffees (-11.6%) sold on the websites of the SCRPI roasters.
The year-over-year change in specialty coffee prices – from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024 – was -0.4%. This breaks down into a 2.7% increase for the lowest-priced coffees, and a 1.9% decrease for the highest-priced coffees.
The corresponding ICO Composite Price for green coffee rose to $1.91 per green pound in March 2024. Thus, as retail prices for specialty coffees fell 7.8%, commodity prices rose 3.3% during the first quarter of 2024. Year over year, as average retail prices for specialty coffees fell 0.4%, the ICO Composite Price rose 15.5%.
* The number of SCRPI roasters currently stands at 55. Green Mountain Coffee was acquired by Keurig, which does not sell roasted coffee in bags. The website for Supreme Bean is currently under construction. Stone Cup Roasting did not sell its coffees on-line during the current quarter. Starbucks (Allegro Coffee) stopped selling coffees on-line during the fourth quarter of 2017 (third quarter of 2021)
