Two numbers tell most of this week’s story. Arabica futures are still trading above $2.60/lb — historically rich territory, even after this spring’s pullback. And per the just-published Coffee Barometer 2026, not one of the world’s 15 largest coffee companies discloses what it pays producers, how long its contracts run, or whether it pays a premium above commodity. The plumbing between record prices and farmer livelihoods is still leaking, and the news flow this week made it harder than ever to pretend otherwise. Here’s what shaped the industry between June 15 and 21.
1. The Coffee Barometer’s 20-Year Verdict: Cheap Coffee Was a Choice
The Coffee Barometer is one of the few documents in this industry that actually changes the conversation, and the 2026 edition — the 20-year anniversary of the report — landed in the middle of this week’s news cycle and dominated the trade press. Produced by Conservation International, Ethos Agriculture, Solidaridad and VOCAL, it is the most comprehensive scorecard the sector has on whether the supply chain works for the people growing the crop.
The verdict is unsentimental. Roughly 12.5 million farming households, most of them on holdings under two hectares, produce the majority of the world’s coffee — and even at the historic price highs of 2025, producer incomes still sit below living-income benchmarks once input costs are factored in. The report estimates that around 10% of retail coffee value is effectively underwritten by the unpaid family labour of those same households.
The corporate scorecard is the part roasters and traders will be quietly forwarding to legal this week. Of the 15 largest companies assessed, none referenced living-income commitments, and none disclosed pricing structures, contract durations, or premiums paid above commodity. The Barometer authors call out what they label “greenhushing” — the pattern of companies reducing public reporting and swapping outcome data for process descriptions to dodge EUDR-era scrutiny.
Sustainability cannot be built on permanently cheap coffee.
The line that’s circulating is from Sjoerd Panhuysen at Ethos Agriculture: “In 20 years the language has shifted: worrying less about hunger in the coffee lands, and more about the cost of a daily espresso.” That is a brutally accurate summary of where industry attention sits right now.
The takeaway: The Barometer’s recommendation — treat responsible procurement as core strategy, not voluntary investment — lines up with where EUDR enforcement is heading. Roasters who can publish farmgate prices, contract terms, and premium structures by name will be in front of both the regulator and the consumer when the next price shock hits. The ones who can’t are quietly being graded already.
2. Stumptown’s President Exits — And the KDP Integration Bill Comes Due
On June 19, Stumptown Coffee Roasters president Laura Szeliga announced on LinkedIn that she was leaving the Portland-based roaster after five years at the helm. The timing is the headline: her departure comes roughly two months after Keurig Dr Pepper closed its $18B acquisition of JDE Peet’s, the Dutch coffee group that owns Stumptown alongside Peet’s, Jacobs, Douwe Egberts and L’OR.
It’s not just the president. Daily Coffee News and Global Coffee Report flagged that over the past month at least half a dozen Stumptown leaders across sales, marketing, logistics and human resources have posted public goodbyes. That is the unmistakable shape of an acquisition integration playing out.
Szeliga’s parting note read like a warning shot to the new owner: “I wish the go-forward team much continued success; I hope Stumptown stays Stumptown.”
This matters beyond Portland. Stumptown is one of the original third-wave brands that helped define what specialty coffee looked like to a generation of US drinkers. Keurig Dr Pepper’s coming separation into a standalone Global Coffee Co. — built on JDE Peet’s brands and Keurig single-serve infrastructure — will be far more single-serve-and-grocery oriented than the cafe-and-wholesale DNA Stumptown was built around. The departures suggest the people who built that DNA either weren’t invited or didn’t want to stay for what comes next.
The takeaway: If you work for a roaster that’s recently been acquired by a CPG conglomerate — or one that’s on the rumour list — this is the playbook. Mid-tier specialty leadership typically gets ~12–24 months to deliver synergies on someone else’s P&L before the calls start. We covered Nestlé’s Blue Bottle exit in May; this is the JDE Peet’s side of the same trend.
3. Arabica Rallies on Brazil Rain — But Rabobank Just Raised the Surplus
The futures tape this week did exactly what it’s done all spring: spike on Brazil weather, then absorb the bearish supply prints underneath.
On Tuesday June 16, July arabica (KCN26) gained +2.85% to a two-week high, with July robusta up +1.36% to a five-week peak. By later in the week the contract was trading above $2.60/lb — the highest since late May. The driver: persistent rainfall across Brazil’s main arabica belt, which Vaisala forecast would continue through the week, delaying harvesting and slowing immediate flow to ports.
Underneath that bid, the inventory picture is genuinely tight. ICE arabica stocks fell to 397,242 bags on Tuesday — described by Barchart as a 6.75-month low, and a 2.25-year low by another reading. ICE robusta stocks recovered to 3,991 lots after touching a two-year trough of 3,631 lots on May 15.
But the bigger story for anyone modelling 2026/27 is what’s coming from Brazil. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service is now projecting Brazil’s 2026/27 crop at a record 71.9 million bags, up 14% year-on-year. Rabobank this week raised its global arabica surplus forecast to 9.5 million bags from a previous 7.0 million. That’s a meaningful upward revision for the bearish camp.
Two flies in the surplus ointment, both worth tracking:
- Hail in Minas Gerais. Perfect Daily Grind reported this week that hail damaged 10,000 hectares of coffee in southern Minas Gerais between May 30 and June 1, affecting 1,066 producers. Not a crop-killer, but a real localised loss.
- El Niño risk. NOAA is now flagging a 67% probability of a strong El Niño this year — Volcafe has warned that this could delay seasonal rains during Brazil’s critical September–October flowering window for the 2027/28 crop.
The takeaway: The market is now pricing a near-term tight / medium-term surplus split. If you’re a roaster, don’t lock in long-dated green at panic prices; if you’re a green trader, the El Niño forecast is the one variable that can still reset the whole curve. Watch the September flowering window like a hawk.
4. Denver Hosts Its First U.S. Barista Championship — And Brussels Is Five Days Away
The 2026 U.S. Barista Championship ran June 17–21 at Huckleberry Roasters in Denver — the first time the city has hosted the event. Thirty-six baristas competed across three days of preliminary rounds, semis and a final, with Dalla Corte as the official machine sponsor.
The finalist field carried real weight. Morgan Eckroth, the 2022 USBC Champion and one of the most recognisable competitive baristas in the world via her Morgan Drinks Coffee platform, was back on the stage. Seidy Selivanow (Vancouver, WA) and Ziah Bloom (Austin, TX) joined her among the six final routines.
The USBC matters because the winner represents the U.S. at the World Barista Championship — which this year goes to Panama, October 23–25, the same week the country also hosts the World Cup of Excellence. The reigning WBC champ is Australia’s Jack Simpson of Axil Coffee, who took it in 2025.
The USBC also functions as a soft-launch for World of Coffee Brussels — opening five days from now, June 25–27 at Brussels Expo. Brussels is hosting three world finals at once: the World Brewers Cup, the World Coffee Roasting Championship, and the World Coffee in Good Spirits. It’s the first World of Coffee ever held in Belgium, and Algrano’s pre-show agenda shows the Producer Village alone has more origin representation than any recent edition.
The takeaway: If you can get to Brussels, three categories of world champion are crowned in 72 hours and the entire European trade is in town. If you can’t, the live streams from the WCC main stage are usually the single best way to spend a competition week. Look out for which Producer Village stands are leading on traceability messaging — that’s where post-Barometer brand positioning will get tested in real time.
5. Option-O’s Lagom GDS: A $3,450 Two-Headed Grinder for the Lab-Coat Crowd
Australia-based Option-O launched the Lagom GDS on June 18 — a commercial single-dose grinder that spins two distinct burr sets simultaneously. “GDS” stands for Grinding Dynamics Study, which tells you most of what you need to know about the target customer.
Spec sheet:
- Configurable as 100mm conical + 102mm flat side-by-side, or as dual flat-burr carriers for direct burr-geometry comparisons
- Independent RPM control: 100–500 RPM conical, 200–2,000 RPM flat
- Micron-level grind size on each side, analog dials, CNC-machined metal components
- Pre-order price: US$3,450
- First units ship late September 2026
This isn’t a cafe-bar grinder for everyday menu use — it’s a research tool. It lets a quality lead or roaster taste the same coffee through two distinct burr geometries or two RPMs at once, which is the kind of A/B comparison most teams currently kludge with two separate grinders and stopwatch discipline.
The takeaway: A small but real signal that commercial equipment is bifurcating: high-volume cafe automation on one side, deeply technical lab-grade tools on the other. If your roastery doesn’t have a calibrated sensory bench yet, this is the price tier you should be considering for QC, not your daily bar.
6. Highwire Coffee’s Union Restart: A Test Case for the Bay Area
This week’s Fresh Cup Coffee News Club led with an update on Highwire Coffee Roasters, the Bay Area roaster whose first-contract negotiations with UFCW Local 5 had stalled for months. After CEO Jeff Weinstein exited the company on May 29 — the same day Highwire’s closed Montclair location reopened — bargaining sessions restarted on June 5 and are described as moving more constructively now.
Eight Highwire locations voted to unionise after the company signed a voluntary recognition agreement on March 5, 2025. The 36-worker bargaining unit’s production lead, Scott Schulman, has been the public face of the dispute. His quote this week:
I never wanted any of the stores to shut down. I never wanted financial pain for the owners or the company. All I wanted was fair pay, fair treatment, and a safe working environment.
Why this is a test case: Highwire is small enough to track, but well-known enough in the Bay Area specialty community that the outcome — first contract or extended stall — will shape how other regional roasters approach voluntary recognition. Coming on the heels of unionisation activity at larger US chains, the question is whether mid-sized specialty roasters land closer to the “sign quickly” or “litigate slowly” end of the spectrum.
The takeaway: Cafe owners watching this should be modelling labour cost into pricing now, not retrospectively. The Barometer’s living-income argument applies at the bar, not just at origin.
7. Quick Hits Worth Your Time
Five stories that didn’t lead but matter:
- Coffee maker recalled after 27 injuries, including burns (June 16). A consumer brewer was pulled from market following documented incidents. If you sell consumer hardware in your shop, check your stock against the FDA recall list before Monday.
- Bonfire Coffee’s bigger Colorado roastery (June 17). Bonfire opened a larger production and retail location in Colorado’s resort region — a useful counter-data-point to all the closure stories, and a reminder that mountain-town specialty is having a moment.
- Colombian police seize 2.4 metric tons of cocaine hidden in coffee pellets (June 17). Not industry news in the strict sense, but worth noting because every container of Colombian green now gets a little more inspection scrutiny. Budget extra clearance time.
- USDA holds Peru’s 2026/27 forecast at 4.8 million bags (4.11M arabica, 690K robusta). Peru remains structurally challenged but stable — a useful diversification origin while Brazil and Vietnam dominate the headlines.
- People moves: Blue Tokai (India) appointed Pranav Dahiya, ex-Yum! Brands and Chaayos, as Chief Business Officer. Hagen named Sebastian Quistorff (Prolog Coffee co-founder) Director of Quality and Brand Experience.
Who to Follow This Week
| Name | Why Now |
|---|---|
| Sjoerd Panhuysen (Ethos Agriculture) | Lead voice on the Coffee Barometer 2026; the clearest writer on living income in coffee |
| Morgan Eckroth (Morgan Drinks Coffee) | 2022 USBC Champ back at the 2026 USBC finals; best newsletter on competition prep |
| Alejandra Cordero Solano (Costa Rica) | Top scorer at the 2026 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence (91.36 on a washed Java); July 9 auction is imminent |
| Jack Simpson (Axil Coffee, AU) | Reigning 2025 WBC Champion ahead of October’s Panama defence |
| Option-O (Australia) | Lagom GDS launch is the most technically ambitious grinder spec of 2026 so far |
| Scott Schulman (Highwire Coffee / UFCW Local 5) | Public face of the most-watched specialty union negotiation in the US right now |
The Week Ahead
Three things to watch between now and next Monday:
- World of Coffee Brussels (June 25–27) — three world finals in one venue, plus the Best New Product awards, Roasters Village and Producer Village. Brand positioning in the post-Barometer era will be on display.
- Brazil weather + the September flowering window — near-term arabica still trades on rain, but the El Niño probability is the variable that could swing the 2027/28 narrative.
- Cup of Excellence auctions kick off — Nicaragua on June 25, El Salvador on July 2, Costa Rica on July 9. Watch the top-lot bids to gauge how much premium money is genuinely flowing toward exceptional coffees this cycle.
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