Quick Take — The effect of climate change on coffee: more and more complicated to grow Arabica. And quality suffers

Brazilian producers are choosing more drought-resistant species such as Robusta. But the taste is changing, getting worse: more bitter and with more caffeine. Behind a bean an entire supply chain is changing face: the Arabica variety, Brazilian farmers explain, requires more stable climatic conditions, average altitudes and moderate temperatures than the current climatic extremes. Then there is the problem of inflation and the cost of coffee at the bar: this year Arabica is priced 50 per cent higher than a year ago.One way to tackle the climate challenge is to increase production of the Robusta variety, which has shown itself to be more resilient than Arabica: it tolerates heat and water stress better, and can also be grown at lower altitudes. These characteristics make it safer to the point that in Brazil it has grown at an average annual rate of about 4.8 % compared to 2-2.5 % for Arabica. Green&Blue wonders whether consumers will be able to adapt. In Italy certainly, because very often the coffee that is drunk in public places is bad.

Quick Take — US Christmas shopping: inflation and job losses are compounded by expectations of a slowdown in retail and hospitality sales

during the busiest time of the year. The job site ZipRecruiter said retailers advertise 8.4 per cent fewer holiday jobs on its site than last year (Financial Times), while ads for temporary hospitality workers fell by 12 per cent.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas predicts that US employers could hire fewer than 500,000 temporary workers in the last three months of 2025, the lowest total since 2009. Amazon said it will hire the same 250,000 seasonal workers this year as last year.

The latest indicators from the University of Michigan – from Bloomberg – are not positive: savings and ability to buy durable goods down and expectations of losing a job up.

Consumer sentiment is at its lowest level since June 2022. And Wendy’s will close hundreds of shops as consumers cut back on restaurant spending.(McDonald’s did better but)

Compiled 7 November, updated 8 November 2025

Quick Take — The price of hazelnuts, essential for Ferrero’s spreads and chocolates, has almost doubled since the beginning of the summer

after a spring frost and a pest epidemic in Turkey reduced the amount of hazelnuts available for the confectionery industry.

Ferrero, which consumes about a quarter of global hazelnut production , halted purchases, drawing on its own stocks and sourcing from Chile and the US.

London-based traders say prices have further inflated as Turkish middlemen have aggressively bought from farmers, betting that the world’s largest hazelnut consumer will soon be forced back into the market.

In a normal year, Turkey harvests between 600,000 and 700,000 tonnes of hazelnuts, almost two-thirds of the global supply of around 1.1 million tonnes.

The hazelnut situation, like that of cocoa or meat and milk, will create further inflation.

Drafted 31 October, updated 2 November 2025

Quick Take — Ikea will face duties of up to 50% in the US

where it is increasing its production capacity. Ikea’s revenues in the fiscal year ending August 2025 fell by 1% to EUR 44 billion. The drop is due to the end of price cuts made after a period of high inflation. Ikea is continuing its experiments with small shops and reservation centres that allow it to serve city centres and be present in small towns where its large shops cannot be. It has just announced the opening of small shops that will be called Lada. Source FT

Brexit: between inflation and new unicorns

The pros and cons of the European Union and the Britain that left us in 2016: the British experienced higher inflation but created a fertile ground for the development of start-ups valued at over a billion. The Germans have a banking system that is not conducive to the emergence of unicorns. Italy, least of all.

Quick Take — US inflation rises to 2.9% in August . And unemployment figures are not good

Source

Applications for US unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in almost four years, indicating employers are firing more workers. Initial claims rose by 27,000 to 263,000 in the week ended Sept. 6, the highest since October 2021, according to data from the US Department of Labor. That’s significantly higher than the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which predicted 235,000 applications.

Thursday’s figures are just the latest in a quickening drumbeat of worsening news for President Donald Trump on the economic front, from jobs to manufacturing and inflation. Last week, a monthly report on employment showed the whole of the US added just 22,000 jobs in August, building on the previous month’s sobering jobs data, which spurred Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and install a loyalist. More recent BLS revisions also cut job growth numbers by half during most of the last year of the Biden Administration. -NatashaSolo-Lyons

Bloomberg

Quick Take — Historic change: Supermarkets lead volume growth, overtaking Discounts

“From 2019 to 2023, their [the discounters’] turnover grew at an average annual rate of 9.3 per cent, compared to 5.7 per cent for the other operators”(we reported this here). Then there was aturnaround: the growth in volume of the hyper and super channel exceeded (2.5%) that of the discounters (1.3%) . E-commerce was very good at 8.4% (see first table below).

Circana data show how, after 9.1% in 2023, value sales grew more slowly in 2024 ( 2.4%) to consolidate in 2025 with a further 3.7%.

The significant novelty is that, unlike the previous two-year period, growth is no longer just an effect of prices, but is accompanied by a recovery in real demand: volumes, in fact, declining by 0.5% in 2023, turn positive in 2024 ( 1.8%) and accelerate in 2025 ( 2.3%). Supporting this rebalancing is also the dynamics of prices, which after a 9.5% surge in 2023, stop at 0.6% in 2024 and travel at 1.4% in 2025, returning to physiological levels.

Below: one of the factors in the recovery of the Iper Super channel (in which there are also superstores) was probably the strength of the private label, which expressed convenience, and which is beating the leading brands (such as Barilla or Coca-Cola, to give examples, see the second table). A comparison between the different channels – hyper/super/superstore ‘versus’ discounters – on prices is unfortunately not possible to date.

p.s.: looking at the ISTAT data, the drop in volumes highlighted a few days ago, seems to affect only small retailers, not the GD (page 3).

Note that ISTAT has only been using barcodes since 2020 and that not all retailers use them.

Compiled 7 September, updated 8 September 2025