Geopolitical shocks reshape Swiss coffee supply chains

War has become the leading concern for Swiss coffee traders, and alternative routes their top priority. Participants at the Swiss Coffee Trade Association’s annual forum on October 1 described a business planning around shipping disruption and higher fuel costs. The stakes reach well beyond Switzerland: SCTA members, including Nestlé, Starbucks, Sucafina, Olam, COFCO and LDC, represent more than half of global coffee-trading volume.

The country’s role as a trading hub connects coffee grown in South America, Asia and Africa with roasters in Europe and North America. That dependence on ocean shipping leaves traders exposed when routes close or vessels must divert. Coffee roasters are now obliged to hold larger inventories to reduce the risk of running out of beans. For Swiss companies coordinating global flows, the forum’s priorities point to a practical shift: build flexibility into route decisions and prepare to act while conditions remain unsettled.

The route around the Cape of Good Hope is adding 20 days to some Asia-to-Europe coffee shipments. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz since February has not directly disrupted coffee trade on a major scale, but it has prompted carriers to reroute vessels and add fuel surcharges. The shortest shipping route between Asia and Europe has effectively closed, leaving Vietnamese coffee shipments to take the longer passage around southern Africa.

The effects travel across shipping networks. A European shipping company manages 700 vessels and transports 25,000 containers from Asia to Europe. Its senior executive told traders that a disruption to one route affects the fleet as a whole. The longer passage takes time and adds costs that carriers pass on to traders. Coffee’s global export system is extensive: the International Coffee Organization counted 183.6 million 60-kilogram bags harvested in 2025, with 77% exported across 246 routes. That network gives traders options, but diversions can reshape schedules well beyond the route directly affected.

Sucafina chose to put coffee on the longer route rather than wait for the conflict to resolve. Dany Barkha, the Geneva-based trader’s global head of logistics, said companies that prepared early were performing better than those that delayed adapting to longer transit times. His account describes a choice traders face when shipping conditions shift: commit inventory to a slower journey or hold back while the situation develops.

Barkha said Sucafina accepted the longer transit time quickly. The decision reflects the value of moving cargo through a known delay rather than waiting on an uncertain timetable. For roasters, the same disruption is prompting larger inventories to guard against shortages. Those buffers and route decisions are part of a wider effort to keep supply moving as carriers divert vessels and impose fuel surcharges. The shipping executive at the SCTA forum urged traders to make rapid decisions with incomplete information, describing exception management as critical in a continuing period of disruption.

A return of Suez Canal traffic would not erase the extra costs of war-risk insurance. Drewry estimates that transits will reach 80% of pre-diversion levels by February 2027. Yet insurers are likely to charge a war-risk premium, shipping companies expect to pass on through surcharges. The shorter route may therefore offer less of a cost advantage than it did before the disruption.

For Switzerland’s coffee traders, the episode has tested how quickly supply chains can adjust. The country’s trading houses sit between producing regions and major roasting markets, and their planning decisions affect how beans move through that network. SCTA participants put flexibility and alternative routes at the top of their priorities, while roasters build larger inventories to reduce the risk of running short. The forum’s message from logistics leaders was to make decisions early, even with incomplete information. As carriers weigh routes and costs, Swiss traders must factor longer voyages and insurance premiums into the movement of coffee.