Vietnam Coffee-Sales moderate, Indonesia beans eyed

HANOI, March 22, 2011 - Vietnamese coffee prices have risen more than 5 percent in the past week, tracking higher prices in London, but sales were moderate as buyers looked at fresh beans from rival robusta producer Indonesia, traders said.

"Prices in Indonesia are competitive so buyers are looking there," a trader at a foreign company in Ho Chi Minh City said.

Robusta in Indonesia was stable in the week ending March 21 at $2,420-$2,440 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) Lampung, even though the harvest this year is forecast to drop 30 percent from 600,000 tonnes in 2010.

NY Cocoa Market Close Review For Today, March 21, 2011

New York, March 21, 2011-- Cocoa futures rebounded Monday after tumbling last week to a 2-month low on modest short-covering as the trade mulled whether the simmering conflict in top producer Ivory Coast will be resolved.

* Key May cocoa futures climbed $62 to finish at  $3,189 per tonne.
 

* On Friday, the contract dropped $155 or by 4.72 percent to close at $3,127 per tonne, the lowest settlement since Jan. 20, according to Thomson Reuters data.

NY Coffee Market Close Review For Today, March 21, 2011

NEW YORK, March 21 (Reuters) - U.S. arabica coffee futures climbed in similarly low-volume business.

* May arabica coffee futures added 0.80 cent to conclude at $2.77 per lb.
 

* Tight supplies of high quality washed arabica beans kept market supported - brokers.
 

* Business was light though, with total volume traded in arabicas of 11,500 lots about 50 percent below the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters data.
 

* "We had a little bit of a pop, but it was slow and there's not a whole lot to hang our hat on," a dealer said. ******

Cocoa up on short-covering as Ivorian outlook murky

NEW YORK/LONDON, March 21, 2011 - Cocoa futures climbedon Monday on investor buying after last week's steep sell-offand the trade mulled if the virtual civil war in top cocoagrower Ivory Coast could be resolved at all, analysts said.

The softs complex continued to carefully monitor the outbreak of fighting in Libya and the disaster in Japan.

Liffe Robusta and cocoa market close review for today, 21 march 2011

Liffe coffee ends higher, May premium widens:

* Liffe May robusta coffee ends $17 higher at $2,613 a tonne. May's premium to July widened, buoyed by tightness in available deliverable supplies.

* Liffe July cocoa ends 43 pounds higher at 2,051 pounds a tonne. Market continues to be underpinned by conflict in top grower Ivory Coast.*****

NEW ORLEANS, March 21, 2011 - Young American adults have increased the amount of coffee they drink daily in 2011, after feeling better about their finances following the global economic crisis, a survey showed on Saturday.

Forty percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds who responded to the National Coffee Association's National Coffee Drinking Trends 2011 survey said they are drinking coffee daily, compared with 31 percent in 2010.

This brought the daily coffee consumption of this age group back to levels reached in 2009, the survey showed.

"2010 was troubling for younger consumers. That's rebounded in 2011. It shows the industry is able to respond," said Michael Edwards, managing partner with ART Marketing Insight, which was involved in the survey.

NEW ORLEANS, March 21, 2011 - Starbucks Coffee Co said on Friday it would raise the price of its packaged coffee by an average of 12 percent after its Chief Executive Howard Schultz once again blamed speculators for pushing coffee prices higher.
 

"I think it's artificial. I think financial speculation has really stepped into the market," Schultz said, adding that coffee drinkers would not "respond positively" to higher prices.
 

"I think it's a very hard dialogue with the consumer, face to face, as we have to as a retailer, when in fact there probably isn't a substantive answer," Schultz said.
 

Shares of Starbucks, the world's biggest coffee shop chain, closed down 13 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $34.96.
 

The price increase will affect Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee brands, It is the company's first price increase on grocery packaged coffee since March 2008.
Starbucks raised prices last year on some drinks in its cafes.