First Source
Coffee · July 16, 2026
From the ICO's own daily indicator · July 2026

Your green coffee did a round trip this month. The official numbers show exactly how wild it was.

Skip the futures-market noise and read the industry's own reference sheet: the International Coffee Organization publishes its composite indicator price (I-CIP) every trading day. Here is the first half of July, verbatim: 280.17¢/lb on July 1 → 309.80¢ at the July 9 peak → 293.58¢ on July 15. An 11% surge and a 5% retreat, inside nine trading days.

Brazilian Naturals — the workhorse of most espresso blends — moved harder: 306.87¢ on July 2 to 349.86¢ on July 9, a 14% jump in five sessions, before easing back to 330.29¢. The driver, per market reporting: rain forecasts over Brazil's harvest during the critical drying window, colliding with tariff-disrupted trade flows.

278310294

The ICO composite indicator's July round trip, in US cents per pound: the month's low (July 2), peak (July 9), and July 15 close. Month average so far: 290.94¢.

And here is the strange part: the supply picture on paper is a record.

USDA's own world circular forecasts record world coffee production, and Brazil's 2026/27 harvest is widely expected to be its biggest in years. Record supply forecasts and double-digit weekly price swings are not a contradiction — they're what a market looks like when everyone is guessing about weather during the one month that decides bean quality. Volatility, not price level, is now the thing to manage.

Contracts
A 14% five-session move in Brazilian Naturals is the argument for asking your importer about laddering — several smaller commitments across the harvest window instead of one big fixed-price bet, in either direction.
Menu
If you reprice, anchor it to the public number: the ICO sheet is a citable, neutral source your customers can see. "Green coffee's reference price swung 11% this month" lands better than "costs went up."
Story
Your customers like this story — rain on the Brazilian harvest deciding what their morning cup costs is exactly the origin-to-cup connection specialty coffee sells. Tell it with the real numbers.

Sources (primary, verified today): ICO Indicator Prices, July 2026 (I-CIP) — all cents-per-pound figures quoted directly from the ICO daily table · USDA FAS, "Coffee: World Markets and Trade" — record world production forecast · market-driver context (Brazil harvest rains, tariff flows) via Trading Economics and ING commentary, July 15, 2026. Caveat: indicator prices are not your landed cost — differentials, freight, and your importer's book all sit on top; nothing here is a recommendation to buy or hold anything.

Meschelle Peterson
code63labs

LinkedIn-ready text

Green coffee did a round trip this month, and the industry's own reference sheet shows exactly how wild it was.

The ICO composite indicator, verbatim from the daily table: 280¢/lb on July 1. 310¢ at the July 9 peak. 294¢ yesterday. An 11% surge and a 5% retreat in nine trading days.

Brazilian Naturals — the backbone of most espresso blends — moved harder: 307¢ to 350¢ in five sessions. The driver: rain forecasts over Brazil's harvest during the drying window, on top of tariff-scrambled trade flows.

The strange part: USDA is simultaneously forecasting record world production. Record supply on paper AND double-digit weekly swings — that's what a market looks like when weather during one critical month decides bean quality. The thing to manage now isn't the price level. It's the volatility.

If you're a roaster: this is the month to talk to your importer about laddering commitments instead of one big fixed-price bet. And if you reprice the menu, anchor it to the public ICO number — a neutral source your customers can check beats "costs went up."

Source: ICO I-CIP daily indicator table, July 2026; USDA FAS world circular. Read the source, not the coverage.

Claude Design — motion animation prompt

Use the MRP Personal Design System (Signature). Create a 1080x1350 animated data piece titled "The July Round Trip." Bone field (#F4F1EC), Ink type (#141414), Coral Bright (#FF6A4D) reserved for the three big prices, Coral Deep (#D9401F) for kickers and small tags. Cormorant for numbers and headline, Manrope Light for captions. Tall, airy, left-aligned — a commodity chart set like a poem.

Sequence (about 12 seconds, calm — no ticker energy):
1. Kicker top-left in Coral Deep: "ICO DAILY INDICATOR · JULY 2026" — types on and settles.
2. A thin ink line draws a minimal price path left to right: gentle rise, sharp peak, partial fall — no axes, no grid, just the gesture of the month.
3. As the line passes each landmark, a large Cormorant number in Coral Bright settles onto it in sequence: "278" (small caption: July 2, low) … "310" (July 9, peak) … "294" (July 15).
4. The line and numbers hold; one Cormorant italic fades in beneath: "An 11% surge and a 5% retreat, in nine trading days."
5. Beat. The italic swaps to: "And USDA is forecasting record world production." Hold — let the contradiction sit.
6. End card: "Volatility is the thing to manage now." in Cormorant; footer in Manrope Light: "ICO I-CIP · USDA FAS · July 16, 2026." Close with the SignatureMark (Italiana "Meschelle Peterson" + code63labs), bottom-left.

Motion language: one drawn line, settling numbers, crossfades. No bounces, no glow, no candlesticks. Restraint is the aesthetic.

FIRST SOURCE · one verified original-source finding, composed for one reader · this edition: independent coffee roasters