Coffee News Roundup: 2021 Year in Review

Close up of a person reading a newspaper that is on fire.

Hello and welcome to the year 2022, which looks and feels a lot like 2021. But here we are, January 1st, and what better way to start off a new rotation around the sun than by looking back on the year gone and all the coffee news that happened.

Well, some of it. There was a lot.

The worldwide supply chain crisis caused by the (somehow still ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic impacted the coffee industry in myriad ways, from shipping delays to the rebounding of the commodity C price. This increase in the base price for coffee was also a consequence of increased climate instability around the world, but particularly in Brazil where droughts, frosts, and rains hampered production in the world’s largest coffee-producing country.

The big news on the consuming side last year was the explosion of coffee organizing in the United States, most notably the bitterly fought—but ultimately successful—Starbucks unionization campaign in Buffalo, New York.

There was also much corporate coffeewashing in 2021, surprise surprise, as well as good news on the coffee health front. So pour yourself another cup and let’s journey through the coffee year that was.

The Year in Coffee Volatility

The global pandemic that has shaped all our lives for the past two years continued to affect the coffee industry in 2021. Aside from the obvious human impacts, lockdowns and supply chain issues meant that coffee’s journey around the world became slower and more convoluted. A “supply chain nightmare”, according to one article in Bloomberg from March.

Adding to the turmoil, back in May, in response to (eventually cancelled) tax reform plans, major protests in Colombia saw the country’s militarized police react with extreme violence while protesters blockaded ports and halted exports from the world’s third-largest coffee producer.

Oh, and a big boat got stuck in a canal.

The upside to all this is that commodity price for coffee, the C price, soared from $1.28 per pound at the end of 2020 to reach $2.25 as of yesterday. This increase was predicted last January, and the price could continue to climb as the climate crisis intensifies and the pandemic drags on, although there could also be a swing the other way if, as in 2019, supply increases without demand to match.

One thing is for sure, and that’s that coffee production is becoming increasingly difficult as the planet warms. Which leads us to:

Coffee And The Climate Crisis

You may have noticed, what with the mild winter here in the UK, weird weather in the US—record heat for some, record snowfall for others—and the rest of the world also oscillating between extremes, that the climate crisis is a very real, very contemporary thing.

Coffee, of course, is a fragile agricultural product that requires stable, reliable weather patterns to grow and produce successfully. Extreme, unpredictable weather events, alongside increasingly temperamental climate patterns, have made many fear the worst for the future of everyone’s favourite morning beverage.

The big climate story of 2021 concerned Brazil, where the double whammy of a prolonged drought and an unexpected, hard, and widespread frost had a major impact on the world’s largest coffee producer.

Other regions suffered too, with erratic weather in Kenya, rains in India and both rain and dry weather in Vietnam. That’s not to mention the other ways in which coffee and a warming planet are interlinked, as coffee leaf rust spreads and tropical forests are cut down for coffee planting. Although, in one piece of good news, coffee pulp was found to speed up the regrowth of deforested areas “exponentially”, so that’s something.

In July Sprudge wrote a good explainer on all the ways climate change is affecting coffee, from changing weather patterns forcing producers to move uphill to extreme events destroying livelihoods and lives across the coffee belt.

The human cost of climate change shouldn’t be forgotten in all this, and in 2021 there were more reports of producers in Central America abandoning the industry in order to seek out a new life further north. As we’ll see further down, big coffee companies have been quick to offer “solutions” to this problem in the form of “investment” in the region.

Close up of a barista pouring latte art with a jug into a cup, seen from above. Via Unsplash

2021: The Year of the Coffee Union

If there was one unmitigated bright spot in coffee over the past year, it would undoubtedly be the increase in organizing among front-line workers in the United States.

December saw an historic victory for Workers United in unionizing the first Starbucks cafe in the US, with many more locations across the country filing for elections in the aftermath. It was a hard-fought victory, with the massive corporation using union-busting tactics to try to influence the vote, but the success was hugely influential in encouraging others to join the push to organize.

In the specialty coffee world, in August workers at Colectivo Coffee won their election to organize around 400 employees of the mini chain across locations in Wisconsin and Illinois, becoming the largest unionized coffee company in the country. This movement was also marred by union-busting on the part of management, however, and four months after the vote employees are still waiting on a contract.

There were other bright spots in 2021: the management of eight-location chain Pavement Coffee in Massachusetts voluntarily recognized its organizing employees, while in Rhode Island the workers who organized White Electric Coffee were able to purchase the company and create a co-op after the owner decided to sell rather than negotiate with the union.

The Year in Corporate Coffeewashing

In the realm of coffeewashing, 2021 wasn’t exactly a standout year. What corporations did to avoid responsibility for the bad stuff and take credit for the good stuff wasn’t anything new—if you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, then you know the score.

For example, a report released last month showed that the biggest companies, global corporations like Starbucks, JDE Peet’s, Lavazza, Keurig, and of course Nestlé, don’t pay a living wage to those in their supply chain.

Or how about this story from way back in January 2021 saying that “there is little evidence efforts by the world’s top coffee roasters and traders to prevent human rights and environmental abuses are having any impact, with most farmers operating at a loss and unable to produce sustainably.”

On the “we’re helping, honest” side of things, there were press releases like this one where Nespresso brags about donating $100,000 to plant trees in Canada—while its parent company Nestlé works with suppliers who are actively cutting down the rainforest to grow trees for palm oil.

Here’s a fun interview from May with the CEO of Westrock Coffee (with its revenues of $700 million) extolling the virtues of capitalism in general and foreign investment in Rwanda in particular—with lots of development programs and school-building—his being on friendly terms with dissident-disliking president Paul Kagame notwithstanding.

Then there’s the Partnership for Central America, where firms like Nespresso and JDE Peet’s will “offer business-led solutions” in the region “to support economic opportunity” in an attempt to stem the northward flow of migration. Because, historically, what Central America always needs is more foreign investment from major corporations.

Was Coffee Good For You in 2021?

Mostly! It’s always a mixed bag with coffee health stories, but in general it seems like drinking coffee has a positive effect on your wellbeing.

Coffee can keep your heartbeat regular, could be associated with lower risk of stroke and dementia, could significantly reduce your risk of developing chronic liver disease, decrease your risk of heart failure, might lower your risk of developing prostate cancer, is associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, could possibly protect against Coronavirus, and apparently might even help you live longer (if you’re over 40).

On the other hand, coffee could also nearly quadruple risk of glaucoma, is associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer, might also contribute to heart disease, and (surprisingly enough) was found to negatively impact your sleep.

It seems the takeaway here is that nobody knows anything, we’re all just scrabbling around in the dark when it comes to coffee, and that maybe enjoying things in moderation is the way to go. But I’m not a scientist.

The Year in Silly/Dystopian Coffee News

To finish up (and congratulations for making it this far!), let’s take a look at some of the sillier and/or scarily dystopian headlines that made up the year in coffee.

Resurfaced Violent Muppet Killings Give Bygone Brand Wilkins Coffee A Moment (from the week of February 26th)—Jim Henson once made ads for a coffee company, and they’re surprisingly violent.

Goodbye, Coffee? Service Members Might Soon Be Fueled By A Jolt To The Brain (from the week of June 25th)—because what we need is active duty military personnel being zapped into staying awake before being strapped into their multi-billion-dollar death machines.

Coheed And Cambria Launch Their Own Coffee Brand (from the week of February 19th)—I want to write a whole article on bands and coffee collaborations.

Black Sheep Coffee Sells NFTs Of Its Wall Art (from the week of December 24th)—as if the world wasn’t stupid enough, now we have a coffee NFT crossover.

So there you have it—2021 was a long, sad, weird year. Here’s to a better 2022.