Several major supermarket coffee brands in Australia have changed how they market their products as bean prices sit close to 50-year highs. Some jars that once said 100 per cent arabica now simply say coffee, while other products blend arabica with cheaper robusta. The changes are legal, because Australian labelling rules only require a brand to name the bean species if it makes a specific claim about it.
Arabica reached $15.40 a kilogram and robusta $8.73, the highest prices since 1977. Prices have since fallen about 35% from their peak ahead of an expected record harvest in Brazil, but some say shoppers are unlikely to see cheaper jars because other costs keep climbing. At Coles, the Organic Fairtrade Gold Freeze Dried Coffee went from $4 to $8 per 100g between early 2024 and now, and earlier this year its label switched from 100 per cent arabica to instant coffee. A Coles spokesperson said recipes sometimes have to change because of ingredient availability and supply conditions, and old and new versions may sit side by side while the old recipe is phased out.
Moccona, owned by JDE Peet’s, has replaced 100 per cent arabica on its instant jars with 100 per cent coffee beans. Australian-owned Vittoria said on its website in 2020 that all its coffee was 100 per cent arabica, called robusta an inferior quality bean in mid-2025, and later promoted blends that contain it. Managing director Rolando Schirato said some products dropped the arabica label to offer a cheaper option, that whole bean and instant lines remain mostly arabica, and that labelling every blend change is impractical because packaging is printed well before production. Nescafé said its Gold range in Australia has mixed the two beans for more than a decade and the blend “remains unchanged”.
University of Queensland sensory scientist Heather Smyth said shoppers have reason to feel ripped off when small product changes go undeclared. Robusta is not a bad bean, she said, but it is more bitter, and people who drink black coffee such as a long black would notice the change most. Cairns pensioner Brian Rantzau said price matters most to him but he still wants clear product information: “As a pensioner, you’ve got to mind every dollar.” Gold Coast mother Vicki Jarvis stopped buying a Coles coffee once it reached $8 a jar and wants recipe changes shown on the front of the label.
Independent roasters are taking a different line. Jason Lilienstein, owner of specialty roaster Six Of One in Toowoomba, Queensland, uses only arabica that he buys directly from Colombian farmers he has met, and says he has not found robusta good enough for his blends. His customers, he said, care more about flavour and origin than about which species of bean ends up in the bag.
