Who profits most from coffee?
There is no villain in the abstract. Structurally, the largest margins concentrate in the value-added links nearest the consumer — roasting and retail — while farmers carry the most risk for the least share. 'Most profitable' and 'most essential' are different questions with different answers.
Sources show where the underlying information came from. They do not automatically make a claim correct, so disputed history, evolving science and uncertain claims should be labeled as such in the explanation itself.
Published value-chain studies (notably the ICO's economic work) keep finding the same shape: the further downstream you sit, the larger your margin — because roasting, branding and retail add most of the value a consumer pays for. A roaster or cafe in a wealthy market can capture more margin from one bag than a farming family earns from a season.
But margin isn't theft, and simplicity insults everyone involved: the roaster's margin pays rent, staff and quality risk; the retailer's pays the shelf; and the farmer's small share is the direct result of selling raw material into a competitive, price-taking market. The unfairness isn't in any one margin — it's in the asymmetry: farmers bear climate, disease and price risk on the thinnest share of the value. That asymmetry, not 'profit', is the honest subject of coffee economics.
- ·ICO — The economics of the coffee value chain(No direct source link provided)
- ·Academic value-chain and producer profitability studies(No direct source link provided)