The position of Vietnamese coffee has changed when roasters around the world are rushing to buy, the world market also looks to the supply from our country. Since then, cheap Vietnamese Robusta coffee beans have risen to become the most expensive coffee in the world.
Article 1: The spectacular breakthrough of the 'fruit king', Vietnamese fruits and vegetables quickly reached a record
Editor's note: 2024 is a 'bumper year' for Vietnam's agricultural sector. Many traditional industries have regained their position, earning record amounts of foreign currency. Farmers in many places have changed their lives thanks to this. In addition, there are new industries that also have bright prospects for acceleration.
Join VietNamNet to look back at the bright picture of Vietnam's agricultural sector last year with the belief in a breakthrough year 2025 through the series of articles 'The Road to Records of Vietnamese Agricultural Products'.
Price explosion, record harvest
In early 2025, the coffee capital of the Central Highlands is in the peak harvest season, with the price of green coffee beans hovering at an incredibly high 118,300-120,000 VND/kg. Coffee growers earn a profit of about 80,000 VND/kg.
Looking back at 2024, the price of coffee in the domestic market has increased steadily, from 67,000-70,000 VND/kg to nearly double, from 121,000-123,000 VND/kg. At one point, this type of bean even jumped to 131,000 VND/kg, while fresh coffee increased to around 30,000 VND/kg - higher than the price of green coffee in 2020.
In the Central Highlands, people also consider coffee to be "ATMs", helping them "pick up" billions of dollars in 2024.
In the international market, our country's bitter-tasting seeds are also "expensive as hot cakes".
“International customers come to order a lot of products. There are months when we receive several groups a day, from Monday to Saturday,” said Mr. Phan Minh Thong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phuc Sinh Group. Not only that, in the middle of last year, Son La specialty coffee was sold out when it was brought to Chicago (USA). Meanwhile, at the factory, 8,000 tons of coffee, equivalent to 400 containers of goods, did not have a single bean left.
Phuc Sinh sells to many customers in the Middle East and Europe. What surprised Mr. Thong even more was that many Asian businesses have come to him and established buying and selling relationships in recent months.
Ms. Nguyen Thanh Thuy, General Director of Golden Beans Coffee JSC (a member of PAN Group), also revealed that the company had a "prosperous" year with a growth rate of about 40% compared to the previous year.
“This positive result comes from flexibly changing business orientation and goals, focusing all resources on export activities, especially for large potential markets in the world,” she said.
A report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shows that the total coffee area in 2024 will be about 718,000 hectares, with an output of 1.95 million tons.
For many years, coffee has been a key industrial crop in Vietnam with large specialized cultivation areas. In the past, coffee was considered a “poverty alleviation crop” for hundreds of thousands of farming households. Over the years, this crop has developed, making Vietnam one of the top 5 coffee producing and exporting countries in the world, of which Robusta coffee is number 1 globally.
However, Vietnamese coffee has been associated with the phrase “cheap goods” for decades.
Since the end of 2023, this bitter-tasting bean has suddenly entered a price fever, being the priority choice of roasters around the world, and speculators have poured money into buying and storing it, second only to pure gold and oil.
Robusta coffee (the type of coffee that accounts for 90% of the area in Vietnam) recorded a record high price of 5,533 USD/ton at the end of November 2024. Vietnam's average coffee export price in 2024 also increased sharply, from 3,054 USD/ton to 5,450 USD, peaking at 5,855 USD/ton.
For the whole year, the export price of coffee reached 4,158 USD/ton, an increase of 59.1% compared to 2023, and at the same time a record high price for our country's coffee industry.
By the end of 2024, Vietnam exported nearly 1.35 million tons of coffee, earning 5.62 billion USD, surpassing all previous forecasts. Notably, compared to 2023, although the export of this type of bean decreased by 17.1% in volume, the value skyrocketed by 32.5%. Compared to 5 years ago (2019), our country's coffee export turnover has nearly doubled.
In response to these record numbers, Mr. Do Ha Nam, Vice President of the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association, commented that 2024 is an extremely special year for the coffee industry. For the first time, Vietnamese coffee prices are the most expensive in the world.
While businesses and experts say this is a "miraculous year" for Vietnamese coffee. Prices have risen to levels that people "can't even dream of". Not only that, Vietnamese coffee is increasingly showing its important role in controlling supply - demand as well as prices in the world market.
Good quality but need a brand
After many years of development, Vietnam's coffee productivity is at the top of the world. The quality of Vietnamese coffee is also considered "delicious beyond compare". Moreover, in the popular roasting formula in the world, the proportion of Robusta has increased from 20-30% to 30-40%, showing the importance of this strong bean of our country.
In fact, there are businesses that admit that Vietnamese coffee is an irreplaceable product in the European market. They tried buying coffee from other countries to make instant coffee, but could not get the taste of Vietnamese instant coffee.
In particular, Vietnam is the first country and has been very active in implementing the EUDR (European Deforestation Regulation). Up to now, most of our country's export enterprises are ready to export coffee that meets the EUDR as soon as this regulation is implemented. At that time, Vietnam will become a destination for world coffee roasters to seek sources of goods that meet this regulation.
Vietnam's coffee exports are forecast to continue to grow in 2025 thanks to abundant supply and increasing consumer demand from countries around the world. Our country's coffee exports are estimated to increase by 1.8 million bags, to 24.4 million bags.
Value-added coffee products and specialty coffee have appeared in over 80 countries and territories. However, in terms of proportion, Vietnamese coffee is still mainly exported in raw form in bags. Compared to Thailand and Malaysia, the market coverage of Vietnamese coffee enterprises is still limited.
Therefore, although famous for its output and quality, it is necessary to invest in building a brand, creating unique quality, classifying from standard to premium... to export coffee with added value.
This is a difficult path, but in the past 5 years, businesses have invested more in processing, in specialty coffee, aiming for green growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Phan Minh Thong shared that 7 years ago, Phuc Sinh chose to invest in Arabica specialty coffee, building a processing factory in Son La. Up to now, although the export output of specialty coffee is still modest, he is proud that when mentioning Vietnamese Arabica, people immediately think of a very delicious specialty. According to him, this is a common achievement for the whole industry.
Similarly, instead of integrating into the raw export "flow", Ms. Nguyen Thanh Thuy said, the enterprise focuses 100% of its resources on value-added orders with the SHIN Coffee brand.
“This approach helps optimize sales revenue, exploit the potential value of products and contribute to the mission of elevating Vietnamese agricultural products that we set out from the early days of building the brand,” said Ms. Thuy.
Next article: Quietly becoming the world's number 1 supplier, the cashew industry 'embraces' a record of 4.34 billion USD
Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/cay-ca-phe-viet-thanh-cay-atm-hai-tien-ty-gia-dat-nhat-the-gioi-2365286.html
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