The novel corona virus represents an unprecedented
joint supply and demand shock to the global coffee
sector. Since March 2020, when covid-19 was
declared a global pandemic by the World Health

Organization (WHO), coffee prices have been highly
volatile mainly as a result of supply chain disruptions
(Figure 1). An initial spike was followed by a
persistent decrease in price that may foreshadow the
likely cooling of coffee demand as a result of the

recession that is now affecting many coffee-
importing countries. At the end of June, the ICO
composite indicator fell below the 100 US-cents/lb
mark. Hence, the covid-19 pandemic constitutes an
enormous additional challenge to the global coffee
sector that has experienced a prolonged period of
low prices.