Australia's Move To Shake Up Their Coffee Industry – CoffeeTalk

Australia’s $2.5 billion coffee industry is experiencing a surge in small plantations, with locally grown coffee beans making up just a fraction of the market. This figure is expected to reach US$2.17 billion ($3.35 billion) by 2030. Small plantations like Tibor Pinci’s are multiplying in Australia as global coffee prices soar.

Currently, around 500 tonnes of Australian coffee bean production are compared to around 100,000 tonnes of imported green beans. As a result, most of the coffee sold in Australia is brewed from imported beans, mainly Arabica sourced from Brazil. On 22 April, Rabobank predicted a 13.6% drop in Brazil’s 2025-2026 coffee crop to 38.1 million bags due to dry weather in key Arabica-growing areas that significantly reduced flowering.

Rising global financial market volatility, partly fuelled by trade tensions between the United States and China and fears of an economic slowdown, is adding to price instability and compounding the impact of supply-side pressures. Paul Joules, an agriculture research analyst from Rabobank, said that while Arabica prices eased slightly in April, they still remain around 100% higher on a year-on-year basis.

The surge in global coffee prices also adds an incentive for Australian growers to experiment with local production. Tobias Kretzschmar, a professor of plant breeding and genetics at the Southern Cross University, is trialling new coffee trees for Australian growers.

In conclusion, the coffee industry in Australia is facing challenges due to rising global coffee prices and the need for small plantations to compete with larger producers.

Scientists at Southern Cross University are experimenting with coffee trees to determine which varieties have the potential for large-scale local production. They are part of a global project with World Coffee Research, which is trialling 20 to 30 coffee varieties worldwide. In Australia, they have 25 varieties from around 11 countries, including some Asian, African, and South American. To succeed in Australia, coffee trees must be able to thrive in local conditions.

Most coffee crops are grown in Queensland or northern NSW, where warm weather and rain create challenges. Regular pruning requires a lot of work, and if the tree is stressed, it won’t produce a coffee crop the next year. Old varieties require a lot of work and suffer yield losses.

After five years of trials, researchers believe that smaller trees could be the answer. They are looking at semi-dwarf varieties that are more easily machine harvested. The next stage is to take two or three promising varieties that they believe can outcompete the current varieties and trial them at scale.

Scientists are also experimenting with coffee styles to find flavors with mass appeal. Ben Liu, a researcher from Southern Cross University, uses a unique taste wheel to help panel members describe the taste, flavor, or mouthfeel of the coffee. They run a large coffee panel multiple times and collect around 6,000 different coffee descriptors from these panel members.

Locally grown coffee offers additional benefits, such as importing beans from Brazil, contributing significantly to the industry’s carbon footprint. For example, zero-mile coffee in Byron Bay can be obtained from someone who grows, ferments, roasts, and produces it. This gives customers a cup of coffee produced within sight of their location.

Cafe owner Kim Towner uses locally grown produce at her business, Happy Frog Cafe, which is a win-win all around for everyone involved. Growers get paid fairly, and sourcing from local areas can make a big difference to how we look after the planet.

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