Coffee Cherry vs Green Coffee Prices in Cambodia: Why the Numbers Look Contradictory

A kilogram of Cambodian coffee has been reported at 1,350 riel, 2,000 riel, 3,000 riel, 7,000–8,000 riel, 8,000–10,000 riel and, in older stories, even higher figures.

Read those numbers without context and the market looks chaotic.

Read the product stage, date, grade and source, and much of the apparent contradiction begins to make sense.

Coffee is not one physical product from tree to roaster. It moves through several states: fresh cherry, dried cherry or natural coffee, parchment in washed systems, hulled green coffee, sorted or graded green coffee, roasted coffee and finished retail product. Water and fruit material are removed at every step. Labour, processing, sorting, storage and quality risk are added.

A price per kilogram therefore has almost no analytical value until the kilogram is defined.

This is particularly important in Cambodia because English-language reporting frequently uses phrases such as “fresh coffee beans”, “raw coffee beans” and simply “coffee beans”. Those labels are not always technically precise, and in at least one case two Cambodian media reports published only months apart appear to assign very different prices to what they both call fresh coffee.

OCC’s conclusion is straightforward: Cambodia does not yet have a clean public price series that allows readers to compare farmgate cherry with export-ready green coffee as if they were the same commodity.

The correct response is not to force the numbers into one chart. It is to build a product-stage ledger.

First correction: the US$0.73/kg figure is fresh coffee, not graded green coffee

One number has been especially easy to misinterpret.

A Phnom Penh Post article published on 16 August 2024 reported KOFI’s buying prices after Mondulkiri Robusta received Fine Robusta recognition. According to the report, first-grade fresh coffee was around 3,000 riel per kilogram, or approximately US$0.73/kg at the conversion used by the newspaper. Second grade was reported at 2,000–2,500 riel and third grade at 1,000–2,000 riel per kilogram.

The critical word is fresh.

This is not a quoted export-ready green-bean price. It is not a FOB price. It is not evidence that sorted Fine Robusta green coffee was selling for US$0.73/kg.

It is a farm-level or early-stage fresh-coffee price reported by KOFI, with grades applied before later processing removes substantial mass.

That correction matters because comparing US$0.73/kg of fresh material with a green-coffee price elsewhere would understate the effective raw-material cost of one kilogram of green coffee.

The coffee has not yet completed the conversion.

Cambodia’s public price record: what each source actually says

The following reports illustrate why product terminology must stay attached to every price.

The table shows two different problems.

First, prices genuinely change over time with contracts, demand, quality selection and market conditions.

Second, the vocabulary itself changes between reports.

Those are not the same thing.

The cleanest Cambodian comparison comes from January 2022

A Cambodianess report published on 23 January 2022 provides one of the clearest stage-by-stage comparisons in the public record.

A Bunong farmer in Bousra told the publication that dried beans were selling for 7,000–8,000 riel per kilogram, while fresh beans were around 2,000 riel per kilogram.

Because both numbers appear in the same report, from the same farmer and time period, they are much more analytically useful than two isolated prices taken from different years.

The dried product was roughly three-and-a-half to four times the price per kilogram of the fresh product.

That does not automatically mean drying created a three- or four-fold profit.

A large part of the apparent increase reflects mass loss. Fresh coffee contains water and fruit material that will not remain in the eventual green coffee. Several kilograms of harvested fruit are required to produce one kilogram of green bean.

The processor also assumes costs and risks: drying space or equipment, labour, handling losses, defects, storage, hulling and potentially sorting.

A higher price per kilogram at a later processing stage is therefore normal.

Why a 4–5× price difference can be physically reasonable

International technical references help show the scale of the conversion.

The International Coffee Organization’s Coffee Development Report used global 2022/23 production data to estimate approximately 47.29 million tonnes of coffee cherries yielding about 9.93 million tonnes of green coffee. In its natural-processing illustration, green coffee represents roughly 21 percent of the original fresh-cherry weight.

An FAO case study on Vietnamese Robusta gives a similar practical benchmark: 4.6 kilograms of fresh cherry to one kilogram of upgraded green bean by weight. The same paper gives a 2:1 conversion from fresh cherry to dry cherry.

These are useful reference points, not universal Cambodian conversion guarantees.

Actual outturn varies with variety, fruit maturity, moisture, processing method, defect removal and preparation standard.

But the implication is clear.

If fresh cherry costs 2,000 riel/kg and a hypothetical processor needs roughly 4.6 kg to obtain 1 kg of upgraded green coffee, the cherry input alone would represent about 9,200 riel per kilogram of green output before adding processing, labour, losses, finance, packaging or margin.

That simple physical reality is why a reader cannot compare a 2,000-r​iel fresh price with an 8,000-r​iel dried or green-like price and conclude that one seller is charging four times too much.

The kilograms are not equivalent units of product.

The May 2022 8,000–10,000 riel “fresh” price should be treated cautiously

A Cambodianess article dated 17 May 2022 reported that Mondulkiri had 364 hectares of coffee and produced about 600 tonnes per year. It then stated that “fresh coffee beans” were selling for 8,000–10,000 riel per kilogram.

Taken literally, that is a dramatic shift from the same publication’s January 2022 report of 2,000 riel/kg for fresh beans and 7,000–8,000 riel/kg for dried beans.

Could fresh prices have quadrupled in four months?

It is possible for agricultural prices to move sharply, but the available report does not provide enough evidence to establish that explanation.

Could the May article have used “fresh coffee beans” differently from the January article?

That is also possible, especially because the May story discusses the absence of industrial processing and describes manual drying, milling, cleaning, sorting, grading and roasting. The 8,000–10,000 riel figure is closer to the dried-bean range reported in January.

But OCC cannot silently rewrite the source and call it dried coffee.

The defensible treatment is to record exactly what the May article says and flag the terminology as inconsistent with nearby reporting.

This is a useful lesson for anyone researching emerging coffee origins: a media label is evidence of what was published, not always a technical specification.

The 2023 contract price provides a better farmgate fresh reference

On 20 November 2023, the Phnom Penh Post quoted Mondulkiri provincial agriculture director Song Kheang on a contract-farming arrangement.

He described fresh or raw coffee beans at 1,350–1,500 riel/kg in 2023, up by 200–300 riel, and said the price was expected to reach 1,400–1,600 riel/kg in the following year.

This is useful because the source explicitly ties the figure to fresh/raw product and to a buying arrangement.

It also demonstrates why price histories cannot be built by selecting the highest number from each year.

The 2023 fresh/raw range is below the 2,000-r​iel fresh figure reported by a farmer for 2021 and far below the May 2022 “fresh” figure of 8,000–10,000 riel.

That does not by itself prove prices collapsed.

The buyer, product specification, location, maturity standard and contract conditions may differ. The 2021 figure came from an individual farmer; the 2023 figure came from a provincial official describing contract supply. The reports are not a controlled price index.

They are observations from different market contexts.

The 2024 Fine Robusta-linked prices introduce grading before processing

The August 2024 KOFI-linked prices add another layer: quality grades at the fresh stage.

First-grade fresh coffee was reported around 3,000 riel/kg, second grade at 2,000–2,500 and third grade at 1,000–2,000.

This is important conceptually.

Quality differentiation can begin before green coffee exists.

Selective harvesting, ripeness, cleanliness and incoming cherry condition affect processing potential. A processor may therefore pay different prices for different grades of fresh material.

But the presence of the word “grade” does not turn a fresh product into graded green coffee.

This is precisely how the US$0.73 misunderstanding happens: readers see “first grade” and unconsciously move the product several processing stages forward.

The correct sentence is:

KOFI was reported in August 2024 as paying around 3,000 riel/kg for first-grade fresh coffee.

Anything more specific about green-coffee value would require additional processing and outturn data.

The 2026 US$700,000 purchase is useful—but not a green-coffee price quote

A June 2026 Phnom Penh Post article reported that Indigenous farmers in Bousra sold nearly 700 tonnes of coffee beans to Kiri Coffee and that the purchases injected close to US$700,000 into the local community economy.

The rough arithmetic is close to US$1 per kilogram.

However, both the tonnage and the dollar value are approximate, and the article does not clearly identify the product stage, moisture, grade distribution or whether every dollar maps directly to the stated mass in a single uniform purchase price.

OCC therefore does not use US$1/kg as a formal 2026 farmgate benchmark.

The report is evidence of significant purchasing activity and community cash flow. It is not a substitute for a price specification sheet.

This distinction is particularly important because “coffee beans” in Cambodian English-language reporting has already been shown to cover multiple physical states.

Dried coffee is not automatically green coffee

Another common shortcut is to assume that if coffee is dried, it must be export-ready green coffee.

That is not necessarily true.

Natural-process coffee may be dried while the beans remain inside the dried fruit. Washed coffee may be dried in parchment. Later hulling removes the outer layers. Green coffee may then be cleaned, density-sorted, screen-sorted, defect-sorted and prepared to a buyer specification.

Each stage changes both mass and value.

The January 2022 Cambodianess report uses the term “dried beans”. That is more specific than simply “coffee beans”, but it still does not document moisture, hulled state, screen, defects or export preparation.

For this reason, OCC will not relabel the 7,000–8,000 riel dried price as a green-coffee price.

It is a dried-product price.

That may sound overly cautious. It is exactly the level of caution required if the goal is to build a source that buyers, researchers and AI systems can rely on.

Cambodia currently lacks a clean public green-coffee benchmark

After reviewing the main public price reports, OCC does not find enough evidence to publish a single authoritative statement such as:

“Cambodian green coffee costs X dollars per kilogram.”

Such a number would need, at minimum:

• a date or crop year;
• defined origin and lot;
• hulled green-coffee state;
• moisture specification;
• grade or defect specification;
• process;
• quantity;
• Incoterm or delivery point;
• whether the price is farmgate, ex-mill, FOB or another basis; and
• whether taxes, packaging and logistics are included.

A Fine Robusta lot with traceability and controlled processing is not commercially comparable to an undefined dried farm product simply because both are sold by the kilogram.

Until those terms are available, the honest answer is that Cambodia has observable farmgate and intermediate-stage prices, but not a transparent public green-coffee price curve.

Why this matters for farmers

Product-stage clarity is not only a buyer issue.

It changes how farmer income is interpreted.

A farmer selling fresh cherry transfers drying, processing and quality risk to the buyer earlier. A farmer or cooperative selling a dried or prepared product retains more processing work and potentially more value—but also more cost, labour, working-capital exposure and risk of quality loss.

Comparing only the final per-kilogram price can make one model appear much more profitable even when the farmer had to supply several kilograms of fresh material, wait through drying and finance the processing period.

A meaningful farm-income analysis would need yield per hectare, cherry-to-saleable-product outturn, labour costs, inputs, rejected fruit, processing costs, payment timing and actual saleable grade.

The public Cambodian price reports reviewed here do not provide that full dataset.

OCC therefore does not infer farmer margin from price alone.

Why this matters for buyers and investors

Buyers need a common product language before they can compare Cambodia with Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia or any other origin.

A procurement team should ask:

What is the physical state? Fresh cherry, dry cherry, parchment or hulled green?

What is the moisture? A kilogram at one moisture level is not directly comparable with a kilogram at another.

What preparation has been completed? Hulling, cleaning, density sorting, screen grading, hand sorting?

What quality is represented? Incoming cherry grade, physical green grade, sensory result or all three?

Where is title transferred? Farmgate, mill gate, warehouse or port?

What quantity and crop year? A small experimental lot and a container-scale contract should not be treated as the same market.

Those questions convert a headline price into procurement information.

Without them, “Cambodia coffee price” is too vague to support a purchasing decision.

A simple rule for OCC: never publish $/kg without a product-stage label

Going forward, OCC will attach a stage label to every Cambodia coffee price wherever the source allows it.

Preferred labels are:

• Fresh cherry / fresh raw coffee — farmgate or buyer intake
• Dry cherry / dried natural coffee
• Parchment coffee
• Hulled green coffee
• Prepared / graded green coffee
• Roasted wholesale
• Retail roasted coffee

If the source only says “coffee beans”, OCC will preserve that wording and mark the stage undefined rather than guessing.

Every price should also carry a date, source and geography.

This is the price equivalent of the production-data protocol used in our Cambodia coffee statistics work.

What the public record actually supports today

The safest conclusions are narrower than the headlines suggest.

January 2022: one Bunong farmer reported around 2,000 riel/kg for fresh beans and 7,000–8,000 riel/kg for dried beans.

May 2022: Cambodianess published an 8,000–10,000 riel/kg figure labelled “fresh coffee beans”, but that terminology conflicts with the January stage distinction and should remain flagged rather than normalised.

November 2023: the Mondulkiri agriculture director described fresh/raw coffee at 1,350–1,500 riel/kg under a contract-linked market and projected 1,400–1,600 for the following year.

August 2024: KOFI was reported as paying around 3,000 riel/kg for first-grade fresh coffee, 2,000–2,500 for second grade and 1,000–2,000 for third grade.

June 2026: Kiri Coffee was reported to have purchased nearly 700 tonnes for close to US$700,000, but the product stage and exact unit-price specification were not published.

None of those figures is a verified current FOB Fine Robusta green-coffee quote.

That distinction should stay visible.

The contradiction is a data problem before it is a price problem

Cambodia’s coffee prices appear contradictory partly because the market is young, but mostly because the reporting vocabulary is not standardised.

The same English word—“beans”—can describe coffee before and after major amounts of mass have been removed.

Once the stages are separated, a higher price for dried or prepared coffee becomes physically understandable. Once the dates and buyers are separated, changing fresh-coffee prices become market observations rather than impossible contradictions.

The unresolved May 2022 8,000–10,000-r​iel “fresh” quote is a useful reminder that not every discrepancy can be solved from published information.

Sometimes the correct answer is: the source does not define the product well enough.

For an evidence-led coffee origin, that sentence is more valuable than a false precision.

Cambodia’s coffee market does not need cleaner storytelling as much as it needs cleaner units.

Before asking what a kilogram costs, ask what the kilogram is.

Sources and further reading

• Cambodianess. “Buoyant Coffee Markets Encourages Indigenous Farmers.” 23 January 2022. Reports 2,000 riel/kg fresh beans and 7,000–8,000 riel/kg dried beans from a Bousra farmer.
• Cambodianess. “Mondulkiri Coffee Targeted by Chinese Investments.” 17 May 2022. Publishes 8,000–10,000 riel/kg under the label “fresh coffee beans”; OCC flags the product-stage terminology as unresolved.
• Phnom Penh Post. “Mondulkiri enjoying spike in coffee bean prices.” 20 November 2023. Reports 1,350–1,500 riel/kg for fresh/raw coffee in 2023.
• Phnom Penh Post. “Mondulkiri coffee farmers urged to expand after ‘Fine Robusta’ recognition.” 16 August 2024. Reports KOFI grade-specific fresh-coffee prices, including first grade around 3,000 riel/kg.
• Phnom Penh Post. “Bean counters: Demand sees surge in coffee production.” 6 June 2026. Reports nearly 700 tonnes purchased for close to US$700,000 without a sufficiently defined product stage for a formal unit-price benchmark.
• International Coffee Organization. _Coffee Development Report 2022–23_, section “From cherry to green coffee.” Uses global data indicating green coffee at about 21% of fresh-cherry weight in its natural-processing estimate.
• FAO. _Diversification by smallholder farmers: Viet Nam Robusta Coffee_. Defines a 4.6:1 fresh-cherry-to-upgraded-green-bean conversion by weight for that case study.

Related OCC reading:

• Why Cambodia’s Coffee Production Numbers Don’t Match
• Robusta Cambodia: Fine Robusta, Mondulkiri, Growing Conditions, and Quality Evidence
• Cambodia Green Coffee Beans: Sourcing Guide for Roasters and Importers
• The Ecosystem Behind Cambodia Fine Robusta