Price of a coffee in Switzerland rises for fifth year in a row

Price of a cup of coffee rises for the fifth year in a row Keystone-SDA

In 2024 customers paid an average of CHF0.09 ($0.10) more than last year for a cup of coffee in a Swiss restaurant. This means that the price of coffee has risen for the fifth year in a row, the CafetierSuisse association announced on Monday.

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“I never laugh until I’ve had my coffee,” Clark Gable is said to have said. It is questionable whether the US actor would have felt like laughing at all if he had had to pay the price of an average café crème in Switzerland today: CHF4.58 ($5.17). In some regions, you even pay up to CHF6 for an ordinary coffee.

On average, a café crème in a café, bakery or bistro in German-speaking Switzerland costs CHF0.09 more this year than in 2023. This is the fifth year in a row that the price has risen, according to the association. In the past ten years the price has risen by CHF0.36.

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According to the annual CafetierSuisse survey, the cheapest coffee is available in canton Aargau, where the lowest price is CHF2.50. However, at CHF4.50, the average price paid there is only the fourth cheapest. On average, a café crème in Solothurn is the cheapest at CHF4.45.

In canton Zug, a café crème costs CHF4.30, even from the cheapest provider. With an average price of CHF4.84, a cup of coffee is also the most expensive there overall. According to CafetierSuisse President Hans-Peter Oettli, this corresponds to an increase of CHF0.18 compared to the previous year. However, he added that there had been a few changes in the composition of the establishments surveyed in the canton.

+ Cup of Swiss coffee set to explode in price

The experts discovered the highest price for a cup of coffee in canton Zurich. Customers in restaurants there sometimes pay CHF6 for a café crème, and at CHF4.78 on average it is also the second-highest price in the cantonal comparison. Unsurprisingly, the city of Zurich is also the most expensive, with an average price of CHF4.86 per cup.

Hans-Peter Oettli says this is likely to continue at the same rate in 2025. “Further price increases in this range can also be expected in the coming year,” he predicts.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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