MILAN – 2024 was an unprecedented year for Brazil’s coffee exports: according to Cecafé’s figures for the month of December, released yesterday after the markets closed, Brazil shipped 50.44 million bags of all forms of coffee in calendar year 2024,: a 28.5% increase over 2023. This performance is all the more remarkable given the logistical issues at Brazil’s ports and on sea routes.
Shipments actually declined in December. In fact, last month exports amounted to 3,807,914 bags, or 8.1% less than in December 2023.
The volume of green coffee fell by 10.5% to 3,406,421 bags. The decline was entirely due to Arabica (-13.1%), while Robusta rose by 5.1% to 562,978 bags.
Foreign sales of processed coffee were, in turn, up by 19.3%, to 401,493 bags.
Thanks to these figures, cumulative exports for calendar year 2024 totalled 50,443,037 bags (+28.5%), worth more than $12.5 billion (+55.4%).
Green coffee exports soared to a whopping 46,301,629 bags: 30.2% more than last year and 14.2% more than the previous record-high of 40,551,567 bags set in 2020.
Arabica coffee exports grew by 19.8% to an all-time high of 36,946,011 bags (35,624,383 bags in 2020).
Robusta exports almost doubled (+97.9%) to exceed 9.3 million bags. This makes Brazil the world’s second largest exporter of Robusta, behind Vietnam.
Exports of processed coffee were up 12.7% to 4,141,408 bags, slightly below 2020.
The first half of CY 2024/25 also saw unprecedented export volumes for Brazil ‘s coffee exports.
In fact, Between July and December, Brazil exported 26,049,289 bags of all forms coffee (+13%).
Exports of green coffee rose by 12.2% to 23,843,158 bags. Arabica shipments totalled 18,768,820 bags (+8.6%). Robusta shipments reached 5,074,338 bags (+27.8%). Sales of processed coffee rose 22.8% to 2,206,131 bags.
Over the past 12 months, the USA and Germany remained the main destinations for Brazil’s exports, with volumes of 8.1 and 7.6 million bags of all forms of coffee respectively.
With exports of over 4.3 million (+96.4%), Belgium overtook Italy to become Brazil’s third largest market. Exports to Italy, however, rose by a quarter (+24.96%) to over 3.9 million.
Only Japan bucked the trend, with a fall of 6.3%. Exports to Mexico (+144%) and the Russian Federation (+101%) are also booming.
Among the ports of destination, Antwerp overtook Hamburg and Bremen.
Genoa ranks fifth behind New Orleans with a volume of almost 2.2 million.
