Starbucks Corp on Friday raised its price for grocery packaged coffee by 12 percent, on average, due to still climbing coffee commodity prices.

The increase affects both Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee brands and is the company's first price increase on grocery packaged coffee since March 2008.

Given the significant and sustained increase in the price of coffee in the commodities market, we determined we could no longer fully absorb the costs and needed to take action at this time, the company said in a statement.

The Seattle-based coffee company last year raised prices on some drinks in its cafes, but held the line on grocery shelves.

Meanwhile, Kraft Foods on Thursday raised its list prices for most of its Maxwell House and Yuban roast coffees by 22 percent, its fourth and biggest increase in the past year.

Rival J.M. Smucker Co hiked its price for Folgers by 10 percent last month.

We continue to carefully monitor and evaluate green coffee prices and are responding with pricing adjustments that balance our need to run the business effectively while providing maximum value, Starbucks said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein, Phil Wahba in New York and Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Dave Zimmerman)

Coffee