Starbucks Monitoring Coffee Prices

Starbucks Corp. said it’s monitoring the prices at which it buys and sells coffee because of further volatility in the coffee market, and the company suggested that it may raise prices. The Seattle-based company is the largest coffee retailer in the United States, with more than 1,100 stores. Starbucks’ announcement came on a day when coffee futures prices posted their biggest one-day gain since frosts ravaged Brazil’s coffee crop--the world’s largest--in July 1994. Coffee prices are soaring amid lean inventories and smaller-than-expected crops from Latin America and Indonesia. The approach of winter in Brazil is helping fuel the rally, because traders are growing concerned that frosts could reduce production. Starbucks has already raised prices once this year.