Keurig Green Mountain latest coffee company to raise prices

Keurig Green Mountain is raising coffee prices by up to 9 percent effective in early November due to higher costs.

The Waterbury, Vermont, company said Thursday that the price hike will be for all portion packs sold for its Keurig brewing systems and for all of its traditional bagged, fractional packs and bulk coffee products.

Keurig Green Mountain said that it needs to boost prices because of factors including higher prices for cocoa and green coffee and increases in packaging materials, energy and transportation costs. Green coffee is unroasted coffee.

The price increase is effective on Nov. 3.

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. is not the only company raising coffee prices. In June J.M. Smucker Co. announced that it raised prices for most of its packaged coffee, including products sold under the Dunkin' Donuts and Folgers brands.

Coffee bean prices have surged this year, in part because of a fungus that swept through growing regions in Central America, damaging crops in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. A Brazilian drought has also played a role. Brazil is the world's biggest coffee producer.