Join us for our recurring round-up of the latest specialty-coffee industry news.
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Featured image by Joshua Earle
Coffee Exports Suffer as Brazilian Ports Reach Breaking Point
The deterioration of Brazil’s port infrastructure has become a significant obstacle for their coffee industry. In March 2025, Brazil failed to ship 637,767 bags of coffee due to logistical bottlenecks, resulting in a loss of around $1.568 million USD, according to the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé).
“There is an urgent need to expand and modernize Brazil’s ports, streamline bureaucratic processes, and invest in technology and alternative logistics solutions—such as the Northern Arc ports, which are emerging as strategic routes for exporting Brazilian agricultural products,” says Mario Veraldo, CEO of global logistics company MTM Logix.
Throughout May, Grounds for Health Is Doubling Donations to Offer Health Care to Women in Coffee-Growing Communities
Until June 1, in collaboration with Royal Coffee, Royal New York, Swiss Water, and Tony’s Coffee, Grounds for Health is doubling donations to expand life-saving health care to women in coffee communities. The organization shares that $500 will bring critical HPV test kits to 100 female coffee farmers, helping to detect cervical pre-cancer. Click here to learn more and donate.
Passenger Coffee Releases Their Third Annual Transparency Report, with Proceeds Going to World Coffee Research
Early this month, Passenger Coffee released the third edition of their yearly Transparency Report, recapping their 2024 green-coffee-buying efforts. All proceeds from sales of the report will be donated to World Coffee Research. In addition to sharing the prices paid for every pound of green coffee contracted in the most recent harvest year, and cup quality data, the Transparency Report also includes dispatches from Passenger’s green buying team, highlighting their Many Hands, Beautiful Hills project, their new Foundational Partnership in India, an interview with Kaad Kaapi coffee farmers collective representative Dinesh Pejathaya, and more.
Learn more about Passenger’s 2024 Transparency Report and view it on their website here, or purchase a copy to support World Coffee Research here.
ICE Targets Immigrants Working on Kona Coffee Farms in Hawai’i
An article by Miriam Jordan for The New York Times reports that the Kona coffee farms of Hawai’i have become a target for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The piece shares that Kona’s coffee industry is made up of hundreds of family-owned farms, with thousands of immigrant workers from Latin America handpicking coffee cherries in the Kona fields for the past several decades.
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