Why Is Coffee So Expensive Right Now? The Real Reasons in 2026

Let's start with what you're actually seeing at the store

In September 2025, a price tracking report from WREG found that a 25.9oz canister of Folgers averaged $16.44 across major grocery chains — hitting $16.99 at Kroger alone. The reporter noted that same can had cost half the price not long before. Around the same time, one widely-shared post on X showed a Folgers Black Silk jug going from $12.99 to $19.72 in a single month at one retailer. People thought it was a mistake. It wasn't.

As of June 2026, you can find that same Black Silk canister at Walmart for around $20.99 and Target for $23.49 depending on size. For context, here's what real-world coffee prices look like right now compared to just a few years ago:

The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) tracks coffee inflation by the pound as an economic measure — and that number climbed from $6.16 per pound in 2023 to $9.72 per pound in April 2026. That's the steepest sustained increase since the BLS started tracking coffee prices in 1980. But the per-pound stat is just the economist's way of measuring it. What you feel is the canister price — and those have roughly doubled.

The company that makes Folgers raised prices five times since 2024

Folgers is made by J.M. Smucker — a company that buys around 500 million pounds of unroasted coffee beans every year, mostly from Brazil and Vietnam. Since June 2024, Smucker has raised coffee prices five separate times. Their CEO Mark Smucker described it bluntly on an earnings call: "The current US tariff impact on green coffee is our largest exposure."

On top of the base commodity price spike, US tariffs added another layer. Brazil faces a 50% total US tariff on imports. Vietnam faces 20%. Those costs don't disappear — they move through the supply chain and land on your shelf. Smucker called it their fourth increase by August 2025, with a fifth planned for early winter. Each one was passed on to retailers, who passed it on to you.

This isn't a company making a profit grab. Their own earnings calls show they expected price hikes to reduce sales volume — meaning they knew customers would buy less, but they had no choice. The cost of the raw ingredient forced their hand every time.

So why did the beans get so expensive in the first place?

The short answer is Brazil and Vietnam both had bad years — at the same time. Brazil produces about 40% of the world's coffee and is the dominant source of arabica (the higher-quality variety used in most café drinks and premium bags). In 2024, Brazil was hit with a combination of drought and flooding that damaged harvests significantly. The 2025 harvest came in at around 37 million bags of arabica — well below what the market needed.

Vietnam is the world's second-largest producer and the main source of robusta — the cheaper, stronger bean used in instant coffee, espresso blends, and commercial products. Vietnam also suffered drought conditions through 2024. Normally when arabica prices spike, roasters switch to more robusta as a substitute. When both are short at the same time, there's no escape valve — every type of coffee gets expensive together.

The result: by late 2024, coffee inventories on the major commodity exchanges hit multi-year lows. Markets hate low inventory. Prices went up and stayed up.

Then shipping got harder too

Getting coffee from a farm in Brazil or Vietnam to a shelf in Reno involves ships, ports, fuel, and logistics. In early March 2026, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted major shipping routes, driving up freight costs and creating additional supply chain uncertainty. Coffee is a heavy bulk commodity — when it costs more to move it, that cost lands somewhere, and that somewhere is usually the retail price.

On top of that, many Brazilian farmers held back their sales through early 2026, waiting for prices to climb even further before selling. This "farmer holdback" effect squeezed the amount of coffee actually available for export — even when the total harvest was adequate on paper. Less available supply pushed futures markets higher, which fed back into retail prices.

What Starbucks did — and what it signals

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made a high-profile pledge to freeze prices through all of 2025. The company largely kept that promise — but he told CBS News in late 2025 that increases in 2026 could not be ruled out, calling any hike a "last resort." That careful language matters. A UBS survey found that more than 70% of Starbucks customers already cited high prices as their top reason for planning to visit less often. The chain is caught between a rock and a hard place: raise prices and lose customers, or hold prices and shrink margins.

Independent cafés don't have that choice. They can't absorb losses the way a 38,000-location chain can. Many have been quietly raising prices in small increments — the $3.57 average cup is up from $3.46 the year before — while others have cut menu items, reduced portion sizes, or switched to less expensive bean blends to manage their costs.

Will prices come back down — and when?

There is some relief on the horizon, but it's not close. Brazil is heading into a projected record harvest for the 2026/27 season — analysts at Hedgepoint Global Markets are forecasting arabica production between 46.5 and 49 million bags, up sharply from the 37 million bags of the previous cycle. If that harvest delivers as expected, global inventories should start rebuilding through late 2026 and into 2027.

But even optimistic analysts aren't predicting a return to 2022 prices. The BLS tracked coffee at an average of just $6.16 per pound in 2023. Getting back there would require not just a good harvest but several consecutive good harvests — plus easing tariffs, lower shipping costs, and farmers selling instead of holding. All of those things have to line up. Climate change has structurally raised the risk of growing coffee, the regions where arabica thrives are shrinking, and global demand — especially from fast-growing markets in Asia — keeps climbing regardless of price.

The most honest forecast: prices may soften somewhat in late 2026. The $20 canister might edge back toward $15 over the next year or two. But the $8 can of Folgers from 2022 is probably not coming back. The new normal is higher — and it's been reset permanently upward.

What you can actually do about it

• Buy in bulk when it goes on sale. Coffee stores well if kept airtight and away from light. The WREG tracker specifically noted that the same Folgers can that hit $16.99 at Kroger had recently been half the price on sale at both Kroger and Target. Stocking up at a sale price is one of the best moves you can make with shelf-stable groceries.
• Try store brands. Major grocery chains' house-brand coffees often come from the same suppliers as name brands. They've been slower to raise prices and the quality gap is smaller than the price gap.
• Switch to robusta blends for everyday use. Pure arabica is worth paying for when it matters — a nice weekend cup, a specialty brew. For the daily work-from-home pot, a robusta or mixed blend is perfectly good coffee at a meaningfully lower price.
• Buy whole bean and grind at home. Pre-ground loses flavor faster, so you use more of it to get the same taste. Whole beans stretch further per cup.
• Make café drinks at home. A basic espresso machine and a $15 handheld frother can replicate most coffee shop drinks. The bean cost per homemade latte is roughly $0.50–$1.00. The Starbucks version is $6–$8. That math adds up fast.