Rockmart Coffee Market Intelligence · Week 34 · August 17, 2026 · Santos / Panama City
The week in one paragraph
The tape spent Week 34 doing what it has done all season — probing higher on tight supply, then giving some of it back to profit-taking. ICE arabica (KC) spiked above 335 cents/lb intraday on August 10 before fading to close near 321 cents/lb by August 17, leaving the front month softer on the week and down roughly 4% over the trailing 30 days. What kept a floor under the market was the same structural tightness that has defined 2026: ICE certified arabica stocks have drained to about 244,000 bags, their lowest in roughly two and a half years and a fraction of where they sat a year ago. Brazil’s harvest is finally within sight of the finish line but still running behind, London robusta held firm near USD 3,780/tonne, and a weaker real (USD/BRL ~5.22) gave exporters a fresh reason to meet the board. (Price levels reflect the week of August 17; ICE and London are intraday markets and closes move quickly — confirm against a live feed before pricing.)
Harvest: crossing the line, still a step slow
The 2026/27 pick is nearly wrapped but never quite caught up. Safras & Mercado put the overall harvest at 90% complete as of August 12, against 97% a year ago and a five-year average of 94%. Arabica specifically stood at 86%, well behind last year’s 95%, while Cooxupé, Brazil’s largest cooperative, reported its members at 74.6% by August 7 versus 80.4% at the same stage in 2025. Weather has shifted from the frost-watch of mid-winter to an El Niño narrative: models point to increased humidity across the Southeast — Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo — through late July and August, useful for late drying but a reminder that the September–December flowering window for the next crop is where irregular rainfall risk now lives. With the season this late, the arabica frost window is effectively closed; the market’s attention is rotating from what is on the tree to what is on the boat.
26/27 crop outlook
- A record crop on paper, a shortage on the screen — CONAB’s headline near 66.7 million bags would be the largest in its historical series, yet the tape trades tight because the beans are still moving off the tree and into the pipeline.
- Arabica carries the increase, doing the heavy lifting on the on-year cycle, while conilon/robusta sits roughly flat as Espírito Santo works past its biennial peak.
- El Niño is the swing factor for 27/28, not this crop — irregular rain and warmth during flowering are the risk to watch from October onward.
- Domestic strength underlines the tightness: conilon type 7 in Espírito Santo averaged R$ 1,034 per 60-kg bag in July, up 11.7% month-on-month.
Exports & logistics
Cecafé’s July print showed Brazil shipping 3.03 million bags of all coffee forms, up 9.9% year-on-year — but the mix told the harvest story. Arabica shipments fell 8.9% to 1.82 million bags, the weakest July since 2018, while robusta surged 84.4% to 851,235 bags, second only to the 2024 record. Cecafé again flagged the delayed pick and port bottlenecks as the brake on faster growth. The Port of Santos stayed the dominant gateway, handling roughly 75–80% of coffee shipments. Rockmart ships EUDR-ready green coffee out of Santos, Vitória and Rio de Janeiro, and with Santos this concentrated and infrastructure stretched, booking space early and front-loading nominations remains the sensible play into the back half of the crop year.
EUDR corner
The clock is now close enough to plan around precisely. Enforcement stands at December 30, 2026 for large and medium operators and June 30, 2027 for small and micro operators, with competent-authority obligations beginning June 30, 2026 and inspection rates risk-tiered at 1%, 3% and 9% of shipments for low-, standard- and high-risk countries. Brussels has eased downstream obligations, but the core due-diligence and geolocation requirements for the operator placing coffee on the EU market are unchanged. With about four months to the first deadline, documentation packages should be finalised now, not in Q4. Rockmart’s origins ship with the full EUDR polygon and traceability package ready to hand over.
The week ahead
Watch three things. First, the closing harvest prints from Safras and Cooxupé — the pick is nearly done, and a clean finish removes one leg of the bull case. Second, ICE certified stocks: any further draw toward the 240k-bag area reads as outright supportive, while a burst of gradings would take froth off the front month. Third, USD/BRL near 5.22 and the next Cecafé figure — a softer real tends to pull Brazilian selling into rallies. Balance of risk still leans firm on stocks, but the harvest tailwind is fading as the beans finally reach the port.
Prepared by the Rockmart trading desk. For contract structures (spot, forward, EFP, multi-year) or the full EUDR documentation package, talk to us. This report is market information, not trading advice.