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

In the first nine months of 2021, Ecuador already exported about 320,000 bags of 60 kilos of this grass.

MANTA, Manabí

The coffee producer and industrializing sector does not count, these days, with raw material, because the grain that is imported to complement the figure that allows exporting coffee has delays due to the container crisis.

Annually in the producing fields of Ecuador are cultivated about 250,000 quintals of coffee, both robust and Arabic, but about 300,000 quintals are required, so you need to import about 50,000 from several countries,According to Pablo Pinargote, general manager of the Ecuadorian National Association of Café (Anecafé).

The growth of coffee consumption in Ecuador is 5 %, Pinargote acknowledged; But, despite that increase, there has been no better production in coffee fields, which annually begin to harvest the product since July.

"The industries to survive need to import coffee in grain from other origins, because they cannot find coffee internally. There enters this great problem; first, the issue of containers: they have many origins to reach a destination like ours, the cost has increased the cost of up to 500 %, so that makes the raw material currently be supercara for the Ecuadorian industry," said the director of Ancafé.

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

To add inconveniences 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 preparation of industrialized coffee.

Until September of this year, Ecuador had already exported 319,609 bags of 60 kilos of coffee, both Arabic and robust and industrialized, which has meant an income of $ 45.8 million for the sale of this grass, according to the statistics of Ancafé.

Of the last three decades, the best year for the export of Ecuadorian coffee was 1994, when 2′495.586 bags of 60 kilograms were exported, which meant an income to the national treasury of $ 411.2 million; The second best year to export was 2012, when 1′570,944 bags of 60 kilos were sold abroad, which meant $ 273.8 million to the country