The rising cost of coffee beans

We are being "prepared" by our UK coffee bean supplier for on-going price rises to the cost of green coffee beans and roasted coffee beans in 2011.

We had a number of price rises in 2010, of around 8 to 10% a time, and they are indicating that price rises in 2011 will be starting at possibly 15% - although nothing confirmed yet !

If you look at the impact on the cost of an individual cappuccino or latte (just for example) it raises the cost of the drink by less than 2p.  With this increase in cost, on a sale price of perhaps £2 to £2.50, it doesn't sound like it's going to affect high street prices, or put anyone out of business.  But when you start talking about the cost of a case of coffee (i.e. 6 x 1Kg bags of coffee beans) rising from (say) £60, to £69, and if you buy 4 cases a month (which isn't excessive for a popular independent coffee shop), over a year that's added over £400 to your costs. Starts to add up doesn't it !

This comes on top of rises in other areas, like heat, light, rent, rates, fuel.... the list goes on!

The temptation might be to look for cheap coffee beans - but then the vicious circle of rising costs and potentially falling sales due to a reduction in quality just compounds the issue. Better perhaps to put your drink price up by just a few pence to cover the increased costs, and concentrating on trying to generate more sales, either by selling additional products, or by widening your customer base through marketing and promotional activity ?

What are your personal experiences?