Ecuadorian coffee sector is undersupplied due to problems with containers and high input costs

MANTA, Manabi

These days, the producing and industrializing sector of coffee for export does not have raw materials, because the grain that is imported to complement the figure that allows exporting coffee has delays due to the crisis of the containers.

MANTA, Manabi. Ecuador must have 300,000 quintals of coffee annually as raw material for export.

Annually in the producing fields of Ecuador, about 250,000 quintals of coffee are grown, both robusta and Arabica, but about 300,000 quintals are required, so it is necessary to import about 50,000 from various countries, according to Pablo Pinargote, general manager of the Ecuadorian National Association. del Café (Anecafé).

The annual growth of coffee consumption in Ecuador is 5%, acknowledged Pinargote; But, despite this increase, there has not been a better production in the coffee fields, which annually begin to harvest the product since July.

“In order to survive, industries need to import coffee beans from other origins, because they cannot find the coffee internally. This is where this great problem comes in; First, the issue of containers: they have many origins to reach a destination like ours, the cost has increased by up to 500%, so that makes the raw material currently super expensive for the Ecuadorian industry “, said the director of Anecafé.

And to that are added the times, Pinargote emphasizes, because the Ecuadorian industry is not working with those that previously had to have the raw material, which did not exceed in most cases the two or two and a half months it took in getting the coffee to the port; But now, “with the bottlenecks that exist with the container crisis in all parts of the world, the arrival of imported coffee is delayed much longer.”

To add drawbacks in the coffee producing sector: the cost of the accessories that are needed, such as aluminum and cardboard, has become more expensive, which also generates the growth of investment for the elaboration of industrialized coffee.

Until September of this year, Ecuador had already exported 319,609 bags of 60 kilos of coffee, both Arabica and Robusta and industrialized, which has meant the country an income of $ 45.8 million from the sale abroad of this grass, of according to Anecafé statistics.

In the last three decades, the best year for Ecuadorian coffee exports was 1994, when 2,495,586 bags of 60 kilograms were exported, which meant an income of $ 411.2 million to the national treasury; The second-best year to export was 2012, when 1,570,944 60-kilo bags were sold abroad, which meant $ 273.8 million to the country. (I)