INTHEBLACK July 2025 - Magazine - Page 44
F E AT U R E
“If you look at coffee prices over the decades, you’ll see
the graph curving up and back down every 10 to 12 years.
But this time, we’re not going to see that sort of price
recovery. The market can’t even get the price of inferior
coffee back down, so that pushes everything up.”
ANGELO AUGELLO, BEAN ALLIANCE
The coffee cherry, inside
which is the coffee bean
part of leading global green coffee merchant
Volcafe, says the coffee supply chain begins
on a tree.
“Coffee is grown in significant quantities
in more than 25 countries around the world,”
Bannister says. “The tree goes through a
harvest cycle period of around eight months.”
The fruit of the tree is a coffee cherry, but
it’s not the flesh of the cherry that baristas
are interested in. Instead, it’s the pit or
seed — the bean.
“The cherry is picked and processed
through a wet mill and a dry mill to finally
get the green bean, which is the raw material
that is exported around the world,” he says.
“At Cofi-Com Trading, we import those
beans into Australia for the coffee roasters.”
44 INTHEBLACK July 2025
Angelo Augello, CEO of Bean Alliance
and chairperson of the Australian Coffee
Traders Association, is one of those roasters.
His business roasts and blends the raw beans
and then seals them as whole beans or as
pre-ground coffee, before they go to market.
Bean Alliance clients include supermarket
chains, cafes, restaurants and other food
service establishments such as petrol stations
and franchised specialty outlets.
“If you look at coffee prices over the
decades, you’ll see the graph curving up
and back down every 10 to 12 years,” Augello
says. “But this time, we’re not going to see
that sort of price recovery. The market can’t
even get the price of inferior coffee back
down, so that pushes everything up.”
