Port of Antwerp Has World’s Largest Coffee Stocks, Manager Says

The port of Antwerp has the largest stockpiles of coffee in the world, Wim Dillen, senior business development manager at the port, said at a coffee conference in the Belgian city.

Bean inventories at the port’s warehouses increased to more than 7 million bags at the end of July, up from just under 6 million bags at the end of April, Dillen said, in an interview at the two-day conference which ends today.

“That’s at least five times higher than in Hamburg,” Dillen said, commenting on the stockpiles. “We can still store an additional 2.5 million bags.”

The port has 1 million square meters (10.8 million square feet) of space to store soft commodities such as coffee and cocoa. More than 2.8 million bags of coffee were imported into the European Union last year, with Belgium being the third- largest importer after Germany and Italy, Dillen said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Isis Almeida in London at ialmeida3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Deane at jdeane3@bloomberg.net