Relations between coffee world market price and retail price in Belgium

The objective of this publication is toanalyze how the variations observed at the coffee worldmarket price level pass on the coffee retail price inBelgium. This research takes place in the framework ofa coffee value chain analysis. The formation of the coffeeprice cycles seems to fade these last years at worldmarket as well as retail price in Belgium levels and sincethe previous months, these prices rise strongly due to thespeculators interest for the commodities market. Weobserve that when the world coffee price diminishes, thisreduction passes on the retail coffee price in Belgiumless rapidly than for an increase and moreover, thecorrelation is stronger when the world price grows thanduring the deceasing periods. We also notice thatvariability of the world coffee price from 1998 to 2007,which stretches to reduce itself these latter years, isclearly superior to the Belgian coffee retail price one.