Category: Uncategorized

It is a daily ritual for millions of Australians, but if you have noticed the price of your morning flat white or soy latte increase, brace yourself — it is likely to get worse.

By the end of the year, coffee lovers will be paying up to $7 for a regular cup as cafes nationwide struggle to absorb growing overhead costs warned David Parnham, president of the Café Owners and Baristas Association of Australia.

“What’s happening globally is there are shortages obviously from catastrophes that are happening in places like Brazil with frosts, and certain growing conditions in some of the coffee growing areas,” Mr Parnham said.

Key points:

• Prepare to be paying up to $7 a cup by the end of the year
• Shipping costs and natural disasters in coffee regions are being blamed for the price increase
• Australians consume one billion cups of coffee annually, but cafe owners say an increase in price won’t change that

It’s nearly five times the container prices of two years ago due to global shortages of containers and ships to be able to take things around the world.

The pain will be felt from the cities to the outback, but Mr Parnham said the increase was well overdue, with the average $4 price for a standard latte, cappuccino and flat white remaining stable for years.

“The reality is it should be $6-7. It’s just that cafés are holding back on passing that pricing on per cup to the consumer,” he said.

But roaster Raoul Hauri said it hadn’t made a dent in sales, with more than 300 customers still coming through the doors for their daily fix. “No one really batted an eyelid,” he said. “We thought we would get more pushback, but I think at the moment people understand.

Paving the way for Australian producers

While coffee drinkers will be feeling the pinch, Australian producers like Candy MacLaughlin from Skybury Roasters hopes the increasing cost of imports will pave the way for growth in the local industry, allowing it to compete in the market.

“[In the ] overall cost of business, we haven’t been able to drop our prices to be competitive, so we’ve really worked on that niche base,” Ms MacLaughlin said.

“All those things will help us to grow our coffee plantation once more.”

According to an analysis by Business Insider, fashion production comprises 10% of total global carbon emissions, as much as the emissions generated by the European Union. The industry dries up water sources and pollutes rivers and streams, while 85% of all textiles go to dumps each year. Even washing clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibres into the ocean each year, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.

The Quantis International 2018 report found that the three main drivers of the industry’s global pollution impacts are dyeing and finishing (36%), yarn preparation (28%) and fibre production (15%). The report also established that fibre production has the largest impact on freshwater withdrawal (water diverted or withdrawn from a surface water or groundwater source) and ecosystem quality due to cotton cultivation, while the dyeing and finishing, yarn preparation and fibre production stages have the highest impacts on resource depletion, due to the energy-intensive processes based on fossil fuel energy.

According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, emissions from textile manufacturing alone are projected to skyrocket by 60% by 2030.

The time it takes for a product to go through the supply chain, from design to purchase, is called lead time. In 2012, Zara was able to design, produce and deliver a new garment in two weeks; Forever 21 in six weeks and H&M in eight weeks. Newer industry player Shein, a major Chinese fast fashion company, has garments ready to be sold in just 10 days.

We visited New York City with our baby Emma at 7 months old, and it was a blast. We went all over Manhattan, crossed the Statue of Liberty off our bucket list, and did lots of other fun things.

Will she remember it? Probably not. But we will, and we’ll be able to tell her about it someday and show her pictures of all the cool places she went.

Even though we’re seasoned travelers, we’re new parents, and this was one of our very first trips with a baby, so we were a little bit nervous about everything. New York is a huge city, after all.

Once you’re there, you realize it’s actually easier, safer, and more manageable than you might think, especially if you go in with realistic expectations.

Here are our tips for visiting New York City with a baby!

Table of Contents  show 

We went almost everywhere by walking and using the subway.

NYC is very stroller-friendly at the street level, but if you plan to use the subway, not all stations have elevators. Many have stairs only, and even when there is an elevator, it may be out of order.

For those cases, you’ll definitely want a light and handy stroller that’s easy to fold and carry. We used a Babyzen YOYO2 stroller and it worked great for this.

Strollers are allowed on the subway cars, and we always had plenty of room for ours, but with a bulky full-size one you’d definitely struggle.

Having the right stroller will save you a lot of hassle in New York!

A lightweight stroller is best

Want To Save This Article?

Enter your email below, and we’ll send it straight to your inbox so you can come back to it later. We use your personal data for interest-based advertising, as outlined in our Privacy Notice. Save This 

Baby carriers are great for stairways or tight spaces, and you’ll undoubtedly run into some of those in New York City.

Even though we had a stroller, we were glad to have a baby carrier sometimes for the subway and certain other activities.

We used an Ergobaby Omni Breeze and would recommend it. It’s advertised as fitting babies from 7 to 45 pounds (~0-48 Months), and it was perfect for our 7-month-old.

It was especially handy when we visited the Statue of Liberty, because we wanted to sit on the top level of the ferry for the best views, and you have to climb multiple stairways and navigate a crowd of other tourists on the ferry to get there. It would be a pain to do with a stroller.