Toronto coffee lovers are calling out cafes for high prices, but some experts are revealing the reasons why a morning cup of Joe is on the rise.
A recent discussion about pricey coffee was sparked by a Threads user who said “these Toronto cafes are getting more and more out of touch.”
The user went on to say that she was charged $14 for a cup of iced coffee at a downtown coffee shop, to which other users started sharing their pricey experiences.
“I walked into one that was advertising pistachio matcha, walked out when I saw it was $11.95 plus tax,” another Threads user said.
“It’s time to resort to [Tim Hortons],” another user added.
Now Toronto hit the streets to get residents’ take on the cost of java, and coffee lover Chantelle Penner tells Now Toronto “it’s ridiculous!”
“I’ve had to pay $8 for an Americano, it’s espresso and water,” she said. “I started to make my own coffee a lot more… because I don’t want to be spending all that money.”
Anishan. P also agreed that the price for a cup of coffee is skyrocketingtting in the city.
“It’s pretty expensive, I feel like coffee is pretty expensive to buy nowadays,” he said.
Some social users went on to say they’ve paid as much as $7 for a mocha, and even noted tea prices being out of budget when charged $8 for a London Fog.
CAFE SPILLS THE BEANS
While consumers have noticed the rise in prices for a cup of coffee, cafes, like Louie Coffee Shop in Liberty Village, are noticing price hikes from suppliers which mainly began last year.
“There’s been inflation, the general price of even coffee beans itself has gone up considerably,” Lee said. “Even my suppliers, and I think a lot of roasters, have increases in prices by like between 12 to 16 or 18 per cent on the wholesale side,” Louie Owner Matthew Lee told Now Toronto.
Lee says other factors like minimum wage increases have contributed to the expensive cups of coffee, and even points to the COVID-19 pandemic as having a long-lasting effect on some cafes.
“From what I get from other fellow owners is that the volumes and sales are not like caught back to the pre-COVID numbers, so I think a lot of cafes are still struggling,” he said.
Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, also points to recent coffee bean production issues in areas like Vietnam and Brazil as a cause.
“It hasn’t been available as much as it used to, a lot of buyers out there are struggling to get their hands on more beans, which is creating some scarcity in the marketplace,” Charlebois said.
He says because of this the price of a pound of coffee is close to $4 USD.
He says he expects prices to remain high for a pound of coffee for the unforeseeable future as the issue has been ongoing for a year and a half.
As for the price of a single cup of coffee in shops, Lee says he also expects them to remain high for now.
“A lot of operators right now are paying more for their beans. Right now, we’re just kind of absorbing the cost into the cup,” Lee said.
