The new year has kicked off with a panic in the coffee world as prices balloon up to a new high, a phenomenon some café owners believe will persist if the underlying issues are not addressed.
Coffee has an enormous place in Australian culture, with the country known as a great coffee-loving nation, and so the increased price for cups of the beloved drink has understandably caused alarm.
The concern is felt most by cafés, whose primary business centres around the drink in which the current pricing is now becoming a massive worry.
Arthur Tsiamis, owner of SBS Café, explained the price increase is the product of various factors in combination with each other that goes as far back as during COVID.
“It has taken a few years to get to where it is today. It is not just 2025,” Tsiamis told Neos Kosmos.

Bill Kiakos, owner of Billy Boy Café, supported this, expressing that businesses that buy coffee beans from the big companies and brands are paying far more than they were before the pandemic years.
“If you buy from the big names or different brands, they are selling their beans somewhere between $28-45 a kilo. Before COVID-19, it was somewhere between $16-25 a kilo maximum,” Kiakos told Neos Kosmos.
Tsiamis, who has 38 years’ experience working in and operating cafes, also cited big businesses that largely control the supply of coffee beans as greatly impacting the price.
“Big companies that are bringing all the beans in, they are the ones that want more. They start charging more and with all the other costs, it just filters down to café owners like me trying to sell it to customers,” he said.
“I don’t how it can stop. I don’t think it will ever stop. It has never stopped. It just keeps going up and up.”
Tsiamis noted many other factors that are also causing the price increase, including rising costs in rent, electricity, adopting different types of milk, sugar and various additives, and the move to becoming a cashless society.
He particularly stressed that the privatisation in electricity has allowed privately owned companies to put the prices up at their own desire.
“Electricity has gone up, our rents have gone up, our insurances have gone up. Basically, all outgoings have gone up,” the café owner said.
Tsiamis stated his café now charges $5 for a small coffee, roughly a $1-1.50 increase compared to before COVID, which he has had to do to try keep profitable once you factor in all the rises in outgoings (including tax, GST, and surcharge on card payments).

Even with that change, business is still challenging and not like it once was for his café.
“Every time I put my price up, it is making it more difficult. Instead of people buying three coffees a day, they are buying one now and if that,” he said.
“It is almost like a rare occasion that you are treating yourself to a coffee whereas before it was just an everyday thing.”
Tsiamis expressed understanding that customers cannot purchase the same number of coffees, given that everyone has been impacted by rising bills, food costs etc.
“People are spending less, and I have got to put my prices up for everything that I am doing.”
Kiakos, who has been involved in cafes and eateries practically his whole life, stated that the volume of business remains the same, but the expenses are double and that is the fundamental problem.
“Many businesses are making the same money they were before, but expenses are one or two times up. That is the problem and where many businesses are struggling at the moment,” the café owner said.
He remarked that his business has not been affected as much as others, owing it to the fact his café uses its own blend and that they have a longstanding relationship with a company that roast his beans and have looked after them in these recent years.

Kiakos agreed, however, that other cafes which rely on suppliers are placed in a terrible position as they are at the mercy of the big companies, who buy the beans from farmers and drive the price up and up.
“Once you buy everything from suppliers it is double or triple the cost,” he said.
The situation is incredibly tense for these small business cafes with Tsiamis acknowledging the risk of people turning more towards buying coffee from the supermarkets (whose profits do not rely anywhere near as much on the drink).
“The only people that miss out are us because you can still go to Woolworths or Coles and buy from Nescafe or Moccona,” he said.
“It is going to cost you a quarter of the price than from a takeaway place…but it is not the same coffee.”
Tsiamos shared his belief that the problem needs to be addressed from the very top, stating:
“We are coming to the point where the government needs to help the whole system out.”
Kiakos expressed his view that the pricing can be controlled, saying:
“It has to come from the big companies that are buying from the local farmers. That is where the problem is.”