You’ve likely heard by now about concerns over the impact of tariffs on various goods and now, they could play a role in the price of your next cup of coffee.
“I buy at Starbucks and if their prices go up anymore, I’m done. I can’t justify $6 for a cup of coffee, so I’ll just make it at home,” said Patrick Flanagan of Morro Bay.
According to the USDA, the United States is the second largest importer of coffee in the world.
With 10-percent tariffs on coffee from Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, all three countries are some of the largest coffee exporters in the world.
Brazil has 38% of the global production, Vietnam at 17% and Columbia at 7%.
“Coffee has been impacted some, but if there was a specific tariff that affected those countries we get our coffee from, because all coffee is imported, so anything that is a generalized tax on anything coming in will affect it. What’s going to happen is you won’t be able to get a lot of it,” said Kirk Sowell.
Sowell has owned Frankie & Lola’s Front Street Café along the Morro Bay Embarcadero for the past 16 years. He says all of his menu items have been impacted by various price hikes this year.
“We raised our prices not that long ago, but I don’t see any other way to exist without having to do it again. I hate doing it to my customers. We don’t make money by raising our prices. We make money on people coming back and having a good time,” Sowell said.
Sowell says prices have soared for imports from France like lentils.
“Cheeses and things like that, especially things that are commodities that don’t come over in huge bulks and get sold out over time, things that get replenished every week, those have just gone through the roof,” Sowell said.
Celia’s Garden Café in Los Osos has also had to increase prices on some menu items.
“Today we just rolled out a new menu that has some prices that are increased to combat the rising costs for us,” said owner Matty Laurino.
Laurino bought the cafe a year-and-a-half ago and says while tariffs haven’t directly impacted his cafe, there are still ripple effects.
“If it’s not directly related to the goods we are purchasing, if a customer’s life is more expensive, they are going to cut out the things that are not essential to them so they may not go out to breakfast anymore,” Laurino said.
“Inflation is already enough but to keep stirring the pot and making things crazy in the stock market and abroad isn’t helping,” Sowell said.
