Rockmart Coffee Market Intelligence · Week 40 · Monday, September 28, 2026 · Santos / Panama City
By Thiago Martins
The week in one paragraph
The record crop became official, and the market barely moved. Conab put Brazil’s 2026 crop at 67.6M bags on Thursday, and ICE Dec/26 arabica settled Friday at 278.60 c/lb (+3.25), only 1.90c below the prior Friday’s 280.50. A six-session slide that began on 15 September ended Wednesday after a three-month intraday low near 269.75. Volume was thin, and roasters used the dip to cover Q4 and 1H27 needs. The Conab number was already in the price. The real story of the week sits in the certified stocks: they printed a 27-year low in mid-September and then rebuilt sharply.
Stocks bounce off a 27-year low
ICE certified arabica fell to 217,646 bags around 15 September, the lowest in 27 years. By 22 September they stood at 256,678, and at 254,304 on 24 September (247,887 a week earlier). That is roughly +37,000 bags in ten days, after months of uninterrupted declines. A year ago the same stocks were near 643,000 bags, so the buffer is still thin. The flow behind it is Brazilian: market reports say Olam is looking to certify 150,000–200,000 bags in time for delivery against December. Certification is not destination, though. Coffee graded into the exchange can still be pulled back out if physical demand pays more. The number to watch is how much stays in.
The curve relaxes, the floor holds
The Dec/March switch narrowed to +7.35c on Friday from +8.55c a week earlier, and March/May sits at only +2.35c. The curve is still backwardated, but less so each week. On positioning, Dec open interest fell 2,670 lots during the slide, and Friday’s bounce came with OI down 253. That points to liquidation and short covering, not fresh speculative length. Our read: futures have stopped pricing scarcity but are not yet pricing surplus.
26/27 crop outlook
- Conab (3rd survey, 24 Sep): 67.6M bags, up 19.6% and a record in its series, with 99% harvested. Area in production 1.95M ha (+5.1%); yield 34.6 bags/ha (+13.8%). Arabica is 48.2M and conilon 19.4M, with Espírito Santo conilon at 12.1M (−14.3%).
- Record, with an asterisk: arabica is still about 524,000 bags below its own 2020 record of 48.7M. The total record comes from conilon’s structural growth, not from arabica.
- The estimate gap: Conab 67.6M · USDA 71.9M · Safras & Mercado 75.65M · StoneX 77.2M. A spread of nearly 10M bags between official and private numbers is itself a market signal: the trade is pricing more coffee than the government is counting.
- Weather: Safras reports September rains across the belt for flower opening and fruit set, with a good first impression of the 2027 flowering. The risk is El Niño bringing dryness and heat in the last months of the year. Flowers are not coffee: rainfall continuity, fruit set and cherry development decide 27/28.
- Quality spread: Safras quotes South Minas fine cup at R$1,570–1,580 and Cerrado hard cup at R$1,580–1,590, against R$1,170 for Rio type 7. A roughly R$400 gap shows that fine cups, not commercial grades, are what buyers are paying up for. Aggregate volume alone does not describe Brazilian availability.
- Robusta: ICE London Nov settled at $3,367/t (+77), with support around $3,250. Brazilian conilon keeps being presented for grading.
Exports & logistics: both things are true
Cecafé logged Brazil’s best August ever: 4.155M bags (+31% y/y), including 2.866M arabica (+25.7%) and 953,592 conilon/robusta (+53.6%). That brings the first two months of the crop year (July–August) to 7.204M bags (+21.5%). Government data show September green-coffee shipments running 51.5% above last year’s pace in the first two weeks.
The calendar year tells a different story. January–August exports were 25.073M bags, 1.2% below 2025, with arabica down 11.8%. New-crop flow is strong; the year is still catching up from a tight first half. Anyone saying exports are “record” or “lagging” is right, depending on the window.
Logistics are now the constraint. Cecafé cites extra rollover and storage costs at Brazilian ports. The real closed at R$5.1931 per dollar on Thursday as US 10-year yields reached 5.18%, a 19-year high, which favours farmer selling.
EUDR corner
The full EUDR deadline is 30 December 2026. With new-crop exports running at record pace, EU buyers are sorting suppliers by documentation as much as by price. Traceable, geolocated lots are moving first. Rockmart ships EUDR-ready coffee from Santos, Vitória and Rio de Janeiro, with the due-diligence package prepared before booking.
The week ahead
We are watching three things: whether the Dec/March switch keeps narrowing below 7c, which would confirm that prompt tightness is fading; the daily certified-stock prints, especially whether the Olam volume lands and stays; and rainfall continuity during flowering. Also on the radar: the real against rising US yields and container availability at Santos. Cecafé’s September export report is due in early October.
Sources: ICE Futures US/Europe, Conab, Cecafé, Safras & Mercado, USDA, Reuters, Federal Reserve (H.15), B3. Prepared by Thiago Martins, 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.