Vesper has expanded its proprietary Shea & Cocoa equivalent fats coverage with 10 new Vesper Price Index (VPI) benchmarks for Shea butter and its derivatives. Published weekly, these benchmarks combine inputs from renowned brokers to bring transparency to one of the most opaque supply chains in the market.

What's New:

• Expanded Shea Coverage: Weekly benchmarks for Crude, Semi-Refined, Handmade, Shea Olein, and Shea Oil across key West African origins (Ghana, Burkina Faso).

• Broad Market Input: Prices derived from renowned brokers, combining inputs from multiple partners to ensure robust and unbiased market representation.

Why It Matters:

Public price transparency for Shea is extremely limited, leaving procurement teams to rely on fragmented signals or single-source quotes. These proprietary VPIs provide the independent reference needed to verify quotes in a notoriously non-transparent market. Especially with Cocoa price movements of the past years, this was a much-requested product from our users

How to Use It:

• Prices Widget: Bookmark specific grades (e.g., Shea Stearin, Crude Shea Butter) for one-click access to the latest weekly prices.

• Price Comparison: Compare different processing stages (e.g., Crude vs. Semi-Refined) to identify value opportunities and spot diverging trends between product types.

• Cost Models: Select these Shea VPIs as ingredients in your Cost Models to forecast the total cost of confectionery, Chocolate or any other formulations using actual market data.

How to access?

Add to new or existing dashboards using the search function, or contact your Customer Success Manager at [email protected] to confirm which specific grades are currently active for your region.

Vesper has expanded its proprietary specialty dairy protein coverage with two new Vesper Price Index (VPI) benchmarks: WPC80 Regular US and WPC80 Regular EU. Published every Wednesday, these benchmarks provide independent, region-specific price visibility, allowing procurement teams to track actual market spreads rather than relying on fixed premium assumptions or generic proxies.

What's New:

• Weekly Regional Benchmarks: Prices for WPC80 Regular in the US and EU, published every Wednesday.

• Verified Market Input: Prices derived from verified active market participants—both buyers and sellers—so you see where trade is actually getting done.

• Deep Specialty Coverage: Strengthens Vesper’s unique position in specialty proteins, joining our existing benchmarks for WPC80 Instant, MPCs, WPI, Caseinates, and other niche protein products.

Why It Matters:

Relying on "80 Instant" for "Regular" WPC80 can hide the actual cost. These new Vesper benchmarks provide the independent reference needed to verify quotes against actual market prices. By establishing a shared view of the market, buyers and sellers can align on price faster, ensuring fair trade and reducing the time spent negotiating over data sources.

How to Use It:

• Prices Widget: Bookmark the US and EU prices for one-click access to the latest Wednesday publication.

• Price Comparison: Compare the new WPC80 Regular prices to the Instant variant and use the Spread function to instantly visualize correlations, spot patterns, and track how the price gap evolves over time.

• Cost Models: Select these new benchmarks as ingredients in your Cost Models to see product costs with WPC80 Regular as an ingredient.

How to access?

These benchmarks are live for all Vesper users with access to the Dairy module. Contact your customer success manager at [email protected] for help integrating these new indices into your dashboard.

Vesper has launched Advanced Cost Model Collaboration & Forecasting, transforming how procurement teams build, share, and predict product costs. These features eliminate silos between team members and bring AI-powered forecasting directly into your cost models, enabling real-time collaboration on forward-looking procurement strategies.

What's New:

• Cost Model Forecasting: View your total product costs up to 12 months ahead (depending on forecast availability). Toggle between historical and forecasted values with full accuracy calculations, detailed forecast tables showing price movements per ingredient, and weighted accuracy scores.

• Cost Model Sharing: Share any cost model across your organization with granular access controls. Grant view-only permissions for stakeholder reviews or edit access for joint development, with all shared models appearing in a dedicated library.

• Cost Model Collaboration: Work collaboratively on shared models with real-time updates visible to all collaborators. Receive notifications when colleagues share models or make edits, ensuring alignment on the latest cost structures.

Why It Matters: Cost models trapped in individual spreadsheets create bottlenecks and duplicate work. Meanwhile, static historical data leaves teams reactive rather than proactive. This update enables procurement teams to collaborate on living cost models that look forward, not only backward, turning isolated analysis into coordinated teamwork with visibility into future cost drivers.

How to Use It:

1. Access forecasting by clicking the toggle in any cost model widget to switch between historical and forecast views

2. Share models by selecting "Edit" in the cost model widget, then using the share option under "Access"

3. Set permissions as either "Can view" for stakeholder visibility or "Can edit" for collaborative development

4. Find shared models in the dedicated section of your cost model dropdown, marked with company models

5. Monitor changes through the Notifications banner for updates on shared models

How to access? These features are live for all Vesper users. Contact your customer success manager at [email protected] for training on maximizing collaboration workflows.

Vesper has launched Commodity Shipping Intelligence through an exclusive partnership with Upply, bringing freight rate benchmarks directly into the platform. This integration enables procurement teams to track delivered costs by combining commodity prices with real shipping rates for their specific inbound lanes—creating true landed cost visibility.

What's New:

• Inbound Freight Benchmarks: Real shipping rates for strategic procurement routes, not generic freight indices

• Upply Partnership Integration: Access to validated freight data from one of Europe's leading logistics intelligence providers

• Route-Specific Pricing: Targeted lanes for commodity imports (origin ports to destination factories)

• Multi-Modal Coverage: Ocean freight, road transport, and intermodal combinations where relevant

• Integrated Cost Analysis: Combine commodity prices with freight to calculate true delivered costs

Why It Matters: Commodity prices at origin tell only half the story. With shipping costs representing 10-30% of delivered prices and extreme volatility in freight markets, procurement teams need visibility into both components. This integration transforms Vesper from a commodity price platform into a complete landed cost intelligence system—critical for accurate budgeting and supplier selection.

How to Use It:

1. Search freight routes using origin-destination pairs in the platform search

2. Add to dashboards alongside relevant commodity prices for complete cost tracking

How to access? Freight rates are available to all Vesper users who have access to the Energy and Transport category. For more information, contact [email protected].

Summary: Vesper has partnered with Leap Market Analytics to deliver weekly expert reports covering Beef and Poultry markets. Starting with US market coverage, these specialized reports expand our protein category insights with the first report now live on the platform.

What's New:

• Weekly reports for both Beef & Broiler markets with pricing trends, supply & demand dynamics, and market insights

• Expert commentary from Leap Market Analytics' protein specialists

• Seamlessly integrated into the Vesper Market Analysis section

How to Access: Find the new reports under Market Analysis → Meat and Poultry, with fresh insights published weekly.

Summary: Vesper is excited to announce the launch of a new weekly market analysis report focused exclusively on coffee. This report, authored by industry leader Sucafina, will provide in-depth insights and timely updates on the global coffee market.

What's New:

• Dedicated Coffee Market Analysis: A specialized weekly report offering expert analysis of the coffee market.

• Expert Author: Authored by Sucafina, the leading sustainable Farm to Roaster coffee company with a rich history in commodities since 1905.

• Frequency: Delivered weekly to keep you informed of the latest market movements.

• Release Schedule: Available every Tuesday afternoon.

Why It Matters:

Coffee is a critical commodity for many of our users, and this new dedicated report will provide invaluable, focused intelligence. By partnering with Sucafina, we're bringing you expert perspectives and analysis to help you:

• Understand current market dynamics and trends.

• Anticipate potential shifts in supply, demand, and pricing.

• Make more informed purchasing and trading decisions.

• Gain a deeper understanding of the factors influencing the coffee industry, from farm to roaster.

How to Use It:

• Access the new Coffee Market Analysis report in the Market Analysis section of the Vesper platform.

• Look for the report updates every Tuesday afternoon.

• Consider setting up alerts to be notified when the new report is published.

Summary: Vesper has launched Cost Models, a powerful new feature that transforms individual commodity benchmarks into complete product cost insights. This capability allows food manufacturers to combine weighted commodity benchmarks with standardized non-ingredient costs to build accurate product pricing models, delivering unprecedented visibility into true product economics.

What's New:

• Build complete product cost models by combining multiple commodity benchmarks with precise weightings

• Access industry-standard non-ingredient costs (labor, manufacturing, overhead) specific to your region

• Choose from our template library for common food products or create custom models

• Track how each component contributes to your total product cost with automatic updates whenever source prices change

Why It Matters: With record-high volatility across food commodities, understanding how ingredient changes impact finished products is critical for maintaining margins. Cost Models provide complete cost structure visibility for your entire organization: procurement teams can verify supplier price increases, finance can track margin impacts across product portfolios, and sales teams can justify price adjustments to customers with independently verified data. Non-ingredient costs can represent up to 47% of total product costs—a critical component that's now visible alongside your commodity benchmarks.

How to Use It:

1. Access Cost Models through the main dashboard menu

2. Choose between starting with a template or building a model from scratch

3. Select ingredients from your available commodities and assign precise weightings

4. Add country-specific non-ingredient costs by selecting your industry and location

5. Save your model to track cost evolution over time as prices update automatically

Related Features: Cost Models integrates seamlessly with Vesper's existing capabilities:

• Individual commodity price benchmarks (VPI, Partner prices, and Public benchmarks found in prices widgets)

• Incorporate into your own custom dashboards

• Coming in Q3 2025: Forecasting capabilities for your cost models

Summary: Vesper has expanded its news coverage with two dedicated categories: Vegetables & Pulses and Fruits. These new sections deliver focused, timely information on fresh produce markets, including harvest conditions, logistics updates, weather disruptions, pricing trends, and market developments.

What's New:

• Dedicated news category for Vegetables & Pulses

• Dedicated news category for Fruits

• Comprehensive coverage of global fresh produce markets

• Integration with existing news filtering and alert capabilities

Why It Matters: Fresh produce represents critical input markets for many of our core users. These new categories significantly deepen our current coverage, which has primarily focused on price benchmarks until now. By adding dedicated news streams, users gain deeper insights and earlier warning signals about market developments before they impact prices. This expanded coverage provides essential visibility into volatile produce markets, helping users anticipate supply disruptions, track pricing pressures, and identify emerging trends. This expansion responds directly to user feedback requesting more comprehensive coverage across the complete ingredient spectrum.

How to Use It:

1. Find the new categories in the News section of the platform

2. Set up custom alerts for specific commodities within these categories

3. Filter news by these categories to focus on produce-specific updates

Related Features: These news categories complement Vesper's existing offerings:

• Smart news filtering and aggregation

• Custom news alerts

• Fruits and Vegetables price benchmarks on the Dashboard

Summary: Vesper has expanded its oils & fats coverage with a new weekly Vesper Price Index (VPI) benchmark for Crude Shea Butter (FOB Tema) from Ghana. This proprietary benchmark, exclusive to Vesper, provides a reliable, independent price reference for an increasingly strategic commodity in food manufacturing.

What's New:

• Weekly VPI price benchmark for Crude Shea Butter

• FOB Tema delivery basis from Ghana—the world's largest shea butter exporting country

• Full integration with existing oils & fats dashboards and pricing tools

Why It Matters: As cocoa prices continue to surge, we've seen increased demand from our user base for alternatives like Shea Butter, which has emerged as a critical cost-effective substitute for cocoa butter. This exclusive VPI benchmark responds directly to user feedback, delivering essential price transparency for those seeking different compositions to limit the effects of cocoa volatility on end product applications. Having Vesper's independent benchmark helps verify supplier pricing and supports more confident negotiations during this period of volatility in cocoa markets.

How to Use It:

1. Find the new Shea Butter (Crude) benchmark in the pricing widgets section

2. Add it to the price comparison widget for side-by-side analysis with cocoa butter prices

3. Incorporate this benchmark into your custom cost models to evaluate how chocolate formulation costs change when substituting with shea butter

4. Monitor weekly updates to identify emerging trends and optimize buying decisions

Related Features: This benchmark complements Vesper's existing offerings:

• Cocoa butter price benchmarks

• Vegetable oil price benchmarks

• Cost modeling for ingredient substitution analysis