Latest news with #coffeeprices
Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
The cost of living in Ireland is nuts. Even nuttier are the reasons supposed to explain it
'Stick 'em up!' That's what it should say. Instead, the email's subject line says: 'It's time to renew your car insurance'. The quote is €100 more than it was last year. 'But didn't the insurers promise us the price would come down after the Government reformed the personal injuries law?' 'The reasons for the increase are numerous and complex,' purrs the soothing voice on the other end of the phone. 'You can look around but you won't get it cheaper anywhere else.' Brace yourself, Bridget, as the fella once said. Coffee is called for. READ MORE 'That'll be €4.30,' says the lad behind the counter, handing over the cappuccino-no-chocolate. A bowl next to the pay-by-card thingummy wants to be fed 'tips'. On the Costa del Sol, the lovely, milky coffee comes in a ceramic cup with an integrated holder for your complimentary ice-cream cone. Total price: €2. The world and her husband know the global price of coffee has shot up, but how can it be more than double the price in Ireland? Torremolinos isn't twice as close to Guatemala and Colombia, is it? 'Tsk, it's the minimum wage,' explain those who purport to know. The legal eagles must all be on the minimum wage. How else to explain the prohibitive cost of going to court? The business lobby ISME reckons defamation actions started in a single year generate €30 million to €50 million in fees for 'a small group of lawyers'. That damned minimum wage. Maybe we should start a go-fund-me for the Law Library. Landlords could do with a handout too. The ones who own trophy commercial buildings are barely managing to put bread on the table. Who else but the low-paid workers could possibly be to blame for making Grafton Street the world's 17th most expensive rental address? Surely not the pension companies, investment funds, property developers and wealthy families who own the street. Workers' wages were not the issue when a Circuit Court judge halved the €1. 46 million annual rent Bewley's Cafe was paying a Johnny Ronan company. [ Who owns Grafton Street? Wealthy Irish families and faceless funds control 119 of Dublin's most valuable buildings Opens in new window ] The cost of living in Ireland is nuts. Even nuttier are the reasons supposed to explain it. Take insurance. The Injuries Resolution Board reported on Wednesday that €76 million was saved last year by a reduction in insurance litigation in the courts. Yet motor insurance prices rose by 8.4 per cent in the past year and the Central Bank said last week they'll go on rising because of increasing claims and vehicle repair costs. But then the Courts Service annual report said this week that awards for damages almost halved in 2024. If you're not bamboozled, you must be an actuary. Next, take hospitality. More than 500 restaurants have shut up shop this year. Lobbyists say the antidote is to cut the sector's VAT rate from 13.5 per cent to 9 per cent. That would cost the national exchequer €545 million, with no guarantee customers could get a mug of tea and a fruit scone for less than Jeff Bezos's wedding bill. Cafe owner Jamie O'Connell, writing in The Irish Times last year , said the rent of the building accounted for 21 cent out of a – rather modest – €3.50 cup of coffee. The rest of us must have been snoozing when the Restaurants Association of Ireland was demanding the Government do something about that. Go into a supermarket (please do, Peter Burke , Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment) and try to figure out how the €13.50-an-hour minimum wage can feed a family. According to Conor Pope's research , a kilogram of chicken breasts priced at €4.99 in 2022 now costs €11. There's an extra 27 cent on a two-litre carton of milk since last year and butter is the new caviar at €5.49 a pound for Kerrygold . 'It's a good thing I'm a millionaire,' exclaimed the woman standing beside me as she surveyed the bread shelves. After she walked away, leaving the bread on the shelf, the word 'not' hung in the air. Kenneth Harper, a regular Letters-to-the-Editor correspondent, wrote about his holiday in Cyprus this year. 'A decent supermarket wine' was €5.50, a litre of unleaded diesel €1.32 (€1.74 in his home county of Donegal at the time of writing) and a two-bed furnished flat with access to a swimming pool was €850 per month. A survey by Barnardo s children's charity has found that four in 10 parents are foregoing meals or cutting their portions so that their children get enough to eat. These vicissitudes are not confined to households. High prices for insurance, legal services and commercial rents percolate through the system. It's no surprise the number of visitors to Ireland is declining. The Central Statistics Office said there was an 8 per cent reduction in visits from continental Europe in April compared with the same month last year. And this when experts tell us holidaymakers are fleeing to cooler climes such as ours to escape the continent's sweltering temperatures. Laments about 'the high cost of doing business in Ireland' have replaced the Celtic Tiger's 'soft landing' and 'the fundamentals are sound' audio track of the age. Ireland is Europe's second most expensive country. For the luxury of living in it, you might have to sleep in the street, queue on a hospital trolley, despair of your child getting a school place, wait months for a water connection and cough up gold to afford a packet of rashers. Still, the Government refuses to introduce mandatory reporting for supermarkets so we might understand why they're charging us so much. Remember two years ago when junior minister Neale Richmond hosted a 'supermarket summit'. Please, bring your prices down, he asked them nicely. Now grocery prices are rising at twice the rate of general inflation. Good work, Neale. The Government benevolently doles out one-off payments to subvent the people's spiralling bills, like some feudal lord riding through the village on his snorting stead, throwing oranges to the peasants. It's time it got down off its high horse and fixed the causes – the opaque pricing, insurance claptrap, greedy commercial rents and lawyers' ludicrous fees. These are the costs of doing business in Ireland. Doing the customer is not the solution.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Corn Holds onto Gains to Extend Bounce into Long Weekend
Corn futures pulled off early session gains, but still closed the Thursday session with 2 to 4 cent gains. September was up 8 ¾ cents this week, with December seeing a dime gain. The front month CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 2 1/4 cents at $4.06 3/4. The market will be closed on Friday for Independence Day, with a normal Sunday night open. President Trump is expected to deliver a speech Iowa this evening, with some thinking it may involve trade topics. Arabica Coffee Prices Are Falling. How Much Lower Will They Go? Brazil Coffee Harvest Pressures Weigh on Prices Coffee Prices Fall as Pace of Brazil's Coffee Harvest Accelerates Our exclusive Barchart Brief newsletter is your FREE midday guide to what's moving stocks, sectors, and investor sentiment - delivered right when you need the info most. Subscribe today! A private export sale of 156,000 MT of corn was sold to unknown destinations for 2024/25 this morning according to USDA. Rains are expected to cover much of the Western Corn Belt in the next week, with 1 to 2 inches expected. Lighter totals reaching an inch or less are seen in the ECB. USDA's Export Sales report from this morning showed 532,745 MT of old crop corn booked in the week ending on June 26, on the low side of traders looking for between 0.4 and 1 MMT. That was a marketing year low, but is still 49.2% above the same week in 2024. The largest buyer was South Korea at 273,700 MT, with 157,100 MT sold to Mexico. New crop sales totaled 940,159 MT, exceeding the expected range of 500,000 to 900,000 MT. That was a marketing year high and takes forward sales to 4.5 MMT, 28.6% above last year at this time. Mexico was the lead buyer of 435,700 MT, with 242,700 MT sold to Japan. Monthly export data from Census showed 7.29 MMT (287 mbu) of corn exported in May, which was up 22.14% from last year but down 6.4% below April. That brought the third quarter total to 882 mbu, with the full year total at 2.09 billion bushels. Distiller exports were up 2.67% from April at 918,108 MT, which was still 9.31% below last year. Ethanol exports were a record for the months at 184.67 million gallons. Jul 25 Corn closed at $4.31 1/2, up 2 1/4 cents, Nearby Cash was $4.06 3/4, up 2 1/4 cents, Sep 25 Corn closed at $4.20 1/4, up 2 1/4 cents, Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.37, up 3 1/2 cents, New Crop Cash was $3.95 1/1, up 2 3/4 cents, On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Expert ranks the seven major Aussie instant coffee brands amid disturbing prediction about how much café coffee will cost by the end of the year
The rising price of café-bought coffees is driving budget-conscious customers back to instant coffee for their caffeine fix. Instant coffee has made a comeback after an expert recently predicted that we could be paying between $8 and $12 on average for a barista-made coffee by the end of the year. The increase in café coffee prices comes after a recent spike in the price in the cost of coffee beans, driven by poor growing conditions and ongoing supply chain issues. These higher coffee bean prices, coupled with other rising business operation costs, have resulted in an unfortunate but inevitable increase om the cost of café coffee. As households grapple with cost-of-living pressures, it seems coffee lovers are increasingly turning to cheaper at-home alternatives - leading to the surprise re-emergence of instant coffee. With so many brands on the market, Sydney nutritionist Lee Holmes has shared her verdict on popular supermarket instant coffees. Speaking to FEMAIL, the wholefoods chef said Nescafe's two varieties - Blend 43 and Gold - were among her top picks. 'Nescafe Gold is slightly less acidic than other instant coffees, and Nescafe Blend 43 uses 100 per cent natural beans with no additives or preservatives and claims sustainable sourcing,' Lee said. 'However, if avoiding chemicals and ensuring ethical sourcing are your top priorities, you may want to look for certified organic and Fair Trade brands.' The founder of Supercharged Food then ranked the following instant coffee brands: Robert Timms in second place, followed by Aldi Alcafe, Moccona, Coles and Woolworths. Surprisingly, her least favourite was International Roast, which she placed last, describing it as a 'basic instant coffee option'. Her rating comes after Martin Brown, Australian general manager for Nestlé - which owns Nescafé - revealed that while Aussies' love of coffee remains unwavering, they're now more willing to 'trade down' from barista made-coffee to at-home alternatives. 'So we are drinking more soluble (instant) coffee, and we are drinking more premium choices of [instant] coffee,' Martin told The Australian. The company reported that its Nescafé Gold instant coffee is currently the fastest growing in the market. His comments are backed by market insight statistics showing that the at-home coffee market is on the rise in Australia and is predicted to grow annually by 3.64 per cent over the next four years. So, which instant coffee brew are we reaching for? According to Canstar Blue's Best-Rated Instant Coffee Brand of 2024, the surprise winner - which scored top marks across almost all categories - came from Aldi. Aldi's Alcafe range- which includes the Aroma Classic Instant Coffee (200g, $5.29), as well as Gold Classic and Gold Dark Instant Coffee (100g, $3.89 each) - proved popular among Aussie consumers. The budget supermarket's coffee brand received five-star reviews in the categories of taste, texture and consistency, value for money and packaging. However, it received only three stars for variety and range. A 200g jar yields around 40 cups of coffee, meaning Aldi Alcafe's Aroma Classic Instant Coffee clocks in at around 13 cents per cup. Close behind in second place was Moccona, which similarly received five-stars for taste but was marked down for value for money, as well as in the texture and consistency categories. Moccona Freeze Dried Instant Coffee Classic Medium Roast 200g is currently sold at Woolworths for $23.60 In third and fourth place were Nescafé's instant coffee varieties - Blend 43 and Nescafé Gold. At Coles, a 250g jar of Nescafé Blend 43 costs $14.50 and a 200g jar of Nescafé Gold sells for $20. Rounding out the top five was International Roast, followed by Robert Timms in sixth. Both major supermarket's own instant coffee brands ranked at the bottom of the report, with Coles in seventh place and Woolworths in last. A CHOICE taste test report from 2023 covered a broader range of instant coffee brands and consequently yielded different results. The report crowned Bushells Classic Gourmet Instant Coffee as the winner, followed by runners-up Robert Timms Full-Bodied Granulated Coffee, Coles Classic Granulated Coffee Smooth & Bold and Vittoria Mountain Grown 100% Arabica Instant Coffee Freeze Dried. The 2024 Canstar instant coffee brand winner, Aldi Alcafe, was also featured in the 2023 Choice report, where their Gold Dark Instant Coffee product placed seventh.
RNZ News
27-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Al Brown urging people to switch to filter coffee
In the face of rising coffee prices top chef Al Brown is urging people to park the snobbery and make the switch to the more filter coffee rather barista made espresso. Brown reckons filter has come a long way, since the bad old days. The cost of coffee beans hit a record high of $14 a kg earlier this year. Al Brown spoke to Lisa Owen. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
