Brexit and La Niña Threaten Britain’s Coffee Prices

The UK is about to face a potential increase in food prices, including coffee and cacao: it is due to the global weather phenomenon called La Niña, that is going to probably cause issues to the food market in the UK in 2018, according to The Guardian. Britain, in fact, is expected to be heavy affected by this weather phenomenon after the 2016 decision to leave the EU.

Stefan Vogel, Head of the Agri Commodity Markets Research team at Rabobank, confirmed that there are several threats to the 2018 UK food market: the most important is La Niña, a weather phenomenon which is affecting areas from the Americas to Asia. Vogel also said that the UK is particularly sensitive  to any kind of variation in food prices because of the current high-inflation environment, moreover the Brexit decision has exasperated this condition.

However Jara Zicha, a commodity market analyst at Mintec, said that the La Niña effects are generally hard to predict and that they’ll depend on how strong the weather phenomenon will be. On the other hand, some crops could also receive advantages from a change in the weather.

The UK is now facing three different uncertainties: the consequences of Brexit, the weak sterling which is making prices higher  and the upcoming weather change.