INSIGHTS INTO EFICO’S
2025 SOURCING STRATEGY & MARKET TRENDS
2025 SOURCING STRATEGY & MARKET TRENDS
THE COFFEE VALUE CHAIN IN 2025
PERFORMANCE AND TRENDS IN A VOLATILE MARKET
The coffee market has always been volatile, but in recent years fluctuations have intensified. While prices were historically shaped by harvest expectations, weather patterns, and supply–demand dynamics, financial market mechanisms -including speculative trading and algorithm-driven strategies, increasingly amplify price swings, sometimes exceeding underlying supply fundamentals.
At the same time, climate change remains the most significant long-term challenge facing the sector. Across producing regions, erratic weather patterns -from prolonged droughts to unexpected rainfall and extreme storms -disrupt harvest cycles, reduce yields, and create growing uncertainty throughout the global coffee value chain.
In 2025, several of these pressures converged. Arabica prices surged on the New York C Market amid drought-affected Brazilian crops and delayed harvests in parts of Central America. Logistical bottlenecks, geopolitical tensions, and lingering trade policies, including tariffs introduced under the Trump administration, added further complexity to the global trading environment. Meanwhile, regulatory developments in the European Union -notably the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and updated organic standards, introduced additional compliance requirements for actors across the coffee value chain.
Despite this challenging environment, EFICO achieved strategic growth in 2025, moving more coffee than ever while continuing to build on nearly a century of experience in connecting coffee value chain partners. Through strategic sourcing and transparent collaboration with partner farmers, cooperatives, exporters, and roasters, EFICO works to strengthen every link in the chain -helping partners navigate market volatility, regulatory complexity, and climate-related challenges.
EFICO | CONNECTING THE COFFEE VALUE CHAIN
PURPOSE DRIVEN PARTNERSHIPS AND STRATEGIC OPERATIONS
For nearly a century, EFICO has connected coffee value chain partners through long-term, trusted relationships that foster resilience and shared growth. Through its origin offices and green coffee trading teams, EFICO works closely with partner farmers, cooperatives, and exporters, providing market access, technical guidance, and sustainability support while maintaining lasting partnerships with partner roasters worldwide.
Complementing its operational sourcing work, the EFICO Foundation supports coffee-producing communities worldwide -structurally supporting coffee farmers and their families while positively impacting livelihoods, prosperity, and the environment.
EFICO | QUALITY, TRACEABILITY & SUSTAINABILITY
Y2025 KEY FACTS & FIGURES FROM EFICO’S MAIN SOURCING AREAS
EFICO’s sourcing strategy is built on purpose-driven partnerships across the coffee value chain, starting at origin. By collaborating closely with cooperatives, local exporters, and trusted supply partners, EFICO works to ensure a transparent and resilient coffee supply while reinvesting value locally in coffee-producing regions.
In 2025, 85% of EFICO’s coffee continued to be sourced from local actors, reflecting the company’s long-standing commitment to locally rooted supply chains. Within this share, cooperatives represented 23% of total sourcing volumes, while local exporters accounted for 57%, showing a slight shift compared to 2024. International exporters remained stable at 15% for the third consecutive year.
These long-term partnerships support local economies, strengthen farming communities, and reinforce resilience throughout the broader coffee value chain -particularly in times of market volatility and environmental uncertainty.
EFICO’s sourcing offices in Ethiopia, Central America, and Brazil remain central to this strategy. Beyond operational hubs, they serve as centers of adaptive collaboration, connecting EFICO directly to coffee-growing regions. By working closely with partner farmers, cooperatives, and suppliers on the ground, these origin offices help partner farmers navigate fluctuating market conditions, climate challenges, and evolving regulatory requirements, while strengthening relationships with partner roasters worldwide.
In 2025, EFICO recorded remarkable growth in absolute terms, with certified volumes increasing by 34% compared to last year, while shares among Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, and Organic remained stable, reflecting continued commitment to certifications.
Rainforest Alliance held the largest share at 64%, also leading in absolute growth, while Fairtrade and Organic recorded the largest relative growth, recovering from the decline observed in 2024 as premiums increased and market prices remained high.
A shift in origins was observed, with a lower share of Organic and Fairtrade sourced from Central America in favour of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
However, overall coffee sourcing volumes increased even faster than certified volumes. As a result, the relative share of certified and verified coffee represented 49% of total sourcing -marking the third consecutive year of modest relative decrease.
Despite this shift, EFICO’s sourcing remains above the global market average, as reported by the Global Coffee Platform in 2024, which registered 47% sustainable sourcing under third-party schemes.
These dynamics reflect broader market conditions. During periods of high and volatile coffee prices, certification models can become more complex for both producers and buyers, as certification costs and administrative requirements must be balanced against market opportunities.
STRATEGIC SOURCING : DEEP DIVE : KEY ORIGINS
The world map above provides a 2025 snapshot of coffee origins, showing the shares of certified, verified, and unverified coffee. These patterns vary across EFICO’s key coffee-producing regions, reflecting differences in sourcing volumes, certifications, and partnerships.
For a more detailed view, we analysed sourcing data from EFICO’s major coffee origins with established sourcing offices –Brazil, Central America, and Ethiopia -and included Uganda, a country featured in this deeper analysis despite not having an EFICO origin office. This analysis highlights how sourcing volumes, certifications, and partnerships differ across regions and sets the stage for a closer look at each origin’s sourcing profile.
EFICO | EUDR READINESS
GLOBAL READINESS & SUPPLIER ENGAGEMENT
In 2025, EFICO continued its efforts to ensure compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), despite the late announcement of another one-year delay in its entry into application. By the end of the year, 93% of geolocation datasets submitted for EUDR contracts were approved according to EFICO’s strictest standards and assessments. This reflects both the growing familiarity of suppliers with EUDR requirements and the improving quality of incoming data, demonstrating how detailed feedback from EFICO’s GIS team is being integrated effectively at origin.
A major step in this process was the launch of EFICO’s supplier portal during the summer. The portal has streamlined data collection, ensuring rigorous traceability and segregation at shipment level, and is now also used to gather legality-related information from suppliers on an annual basis. This includes mandatory topics such as indigenous peoples, human rights, and traceability. Through these measures, EFICO has strengthened supply chain transparency and accountability, supporting suppliers in meeting EUDR requirements while maintaining readiness for the regulation’s eventual enforcement.
TOGO | FIELD ENGAGEMENT, DATA COLLECTION & GROUND TRUTHING
While EFICO’s EUDR readiness work reflects system-wide improvements in traceability and deforestation risk assessments, translating these standards into practice requires hands-on support in regions where suppliers are less familiar with geolocation and traceability requirements. Togo was selected for focused engagement to ensure suppliers could implement these requirements effectively on the ground.
Since early 2024, EFICO has trained local field teams to collect, harmonise, and validate farmer and plot-level data. Over 2025, the teams collected nearly 10,000 GPS points, documenting plot locations, farm characteristics, and production details. A second field visit in December 2025 implemented ground truthing procedures to verify deforestation alerts, and provided deeper insights into multi-tier supply chains locally.
Most coffee plots are managed within agroforestry shade systems, under an open forest canopy and surrounded by fields of other crops. The majority of coffee trees were planted before 2000, as reflected by large trunk sizes.
Satellite imagery-based assessments initially detected deforestation on dozens plots; however field verification allowed to rule out the risk for the majority of them.
The risk was confirmed on a few plots only and was mainly due to the extension of coffee production plots into previously forested land. Some plots were also excluded due to their location in classified forests and the unclear regulations governing agricultural activities within these areas.
All non-compliant plots were identified and their coffee will be segregated through the local partner and EFICO’s traceability systems, ensuring EUDR compliance while continuing to work with farmers. The field engagement also provided practical education on deforestation prevention, EU regulations, and viable alternatives to preserve primary forests.
This Togo case illustrates EFICO’s hands-on approach, integrating training, data collection, verification, and risk management to ensure even less-prepared origins are part of a transparent, traceable, and sustainable coffee value chain.