As Coffee Prices Surged, So Did Coffee Thefts In Brazil – CoffeeTalk

Brazil, the world’s largest producer and exporter of coffee, has long faced bean thefts by petty criminals and organized gangs. With prices for the commodity sharply elevated compared with past years, farmers and industry groups are warning that the harvest season that runs from late May through September could go down as the worst heist year in recent memory. Early this year, prices for arabica beans hit the highest level on record following several disappointing harvests. Pressure has since eased slightly, but year-to-date prices are still almost double the 2023 average.

With Brazil’s harvest underway, industry groups in key coffee-growing regions are rolling out new protections and urging farmers to be extra vigilant. Cocapec, a coffee growers organization in São Paulo, distributed brochures to its roughly 3,000 members, warning them to take preventive measures before and during the harvest, from installing cameras and reinforcing gates to controlling access to planting and storage areas. In May, Cocapec also launched a free insurance service for members transporting their beans from their property to the cooperative’s storage facilities between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. For an added layer of protection.

Overall cargo thefts have dropped in Brazil from a peak of more than 25,000 in 2017 to about 10,000 last year, the lowest since records began in 2015. But the same “expressive drop” didn’t happen with coffee cargo thefts, which rose in the last three years, according to Ricardo Schneider, head of the Coffee Trade Center of Minas Gerais, an industry group. Experts say coffee is harder to trace than other goods commonly targeted by robbers in rural Brazil, making it attractive to thieves. Criminal groups quickly distribute the stolen beans to established buyer networks, limiting law enforcement’s ability to recover it, even when there are trackers on trucks.

The rise in thefts is just the latest trouble for Brazil’s coffee sector. Despite high prices and strong global demand for coffee, Brazilian producers have seen their profit margins squeezed in recent years because of climbing fertilizer costs, logistics bottlenecks, pricing volatility, and climate challenges. Last year’s harvest was a big disappointment, hurt by excessive heat and drought, which resulted in a smaller-than-usual bean size. This year’s arabica harvest isn’t looking any better, with heat and dry weather persisting. The situation is more positive in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest coffee producer, which tends to grow more of the robusta bean variety used in instant coffee.

In São Paulo, Donizete Guidini’s hijacked cargo worth an estimated 1.5 million reais was recovered hours later at a rural property close to where the robbery took place. A 37-year-old man was arrested, and the case remains under investigation.

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