Can anyone comment on the cost difference to ship something from Brazil to US in containers vs as air cargo? Also, isn't shipping via trucks or trains an option?
Aircraft are only used in time-sensitive situations. The standardized cargo container improved shipping efficiency, but in its absence boats are still the best method of transportation.
The fact that they're waiting for the cargo containers means that it's costing them less to wait than other options. I imagine if they were desperate they could hire out some cruise liners and stuff them with coffee. They'd have to be loaded and unloaded by dockworkers though, not sure if any port would support that anymore...
Probably have it shipped in the same often ill maintained freighters, too - a few years ago I watched an osprey pull a three-foot length of steel wire out of a crane cable on one of those boats. Impressive that the bird could do it, less so that the line was in such a state that a loose wire was there to be pulled out of it. But you could fill their holds with loose beans, no problem.
Doing break-bulk with sacks of beans in a cruise liner could work, but you'd probably end up paying eighty or a hundred bucks a pound for the coffee - I don't get the sense that either cruise ships or longshoremen work cheap. Better just to lay in a supply now, before the shortage shows up in prices at places like restaurant supply stores, and wait it out.
(That's what I just got done doing, anyway. Not like I won't drink it in any case...)
https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/comparing-mari...
Then it gets to the Amazonas river. It's so wide, some Portuguese navigator tought it was a fresh water Sea. There's only one bridge conencting the city os Manaus in the north bank to south and sone ferries scattered all over.
Then you have to cross half the Amazon jungle to get to a port in Colombia (Venezuela is not an option for obvious reasons).
Tl;dr, the Darian Gap is the least of your problems if you want to move coffee by land from here to the US.
I'm genuinely surprised at how impassible this all seems. especially the Andes.
Shipping freight by road to the Pacific means going through Argentina and Chile. I don't think Peru and Bolivia have the maintained roads to do it.
As far as I know, there are only four paved mountain passes between Argentina and Chile. Paso Paso de Jama is probably the most practical, and I think the one carrying the most freight currently.
The other three-- Cardenal Antonio Samoré, Paso Libertadores, and Pino Hachado-- are much farther south.
None of these routes would be cost effective for the international coffee trade at any scale. Take a look at some photos of Paso Libertadores to see what I mean.