Beans and Machine. A Marriage Made In heaven?

02 December 2021 - Inn Express

It's a common misconception that buying your coffee beans & coffee machine in the same deal is the best value option. But it can actually be costing you more money than you realise.

We chatted to our friends at Coffee Collaborative about the best way for you & your business to operate your coffee offering & they explain why they advise all customers to de-couple coffee & machinery requirements.

There is no question that the Covid pandemic has hit the hospitality & food service trade like a steam train. Those businesses that have survived the various lockdowns must now focus in the short term upon survival to bounce back on the crest of the forecast economic boom.

Bringing in incremental, margin accretive options will be an essential challenge to make the books add up at the end of this financial year… This aligned to a new post-Covid breed of a consumer looking for innovation, sustainability, convenience, authenticity, local & regional, wellness & lifestyle, traceability, & most importantly, value for money puts your coffee service front & centre of your F&B offer.

There has never been a better or more pertinent time to review & to take the cost out from your coffee service.

So to further support our customers & offer a truly unrivalled wholesale service, we now work with one of the UK’s leading coffee trade consultants & a top artisan brand to deliver a free of charge, no-nonsense review of where you are & to deliver a cost-saving, value-adding vision for your coffee service.

Machines - 'free on loan.'

There is no such thing as a free lunch, so if you have agreed to a free on loan or lease agreement for your machine that ties in ingredients, you should actively look to step out of this arrangement. This is the first & essential step to reduce cost, introduce transparency & enable you to better tailor your coffee service to your business, with, for example, your own branding.

Typically, a free on loan machine means you are paying 3 to 5 times more for your coffee than could otherwise be the case. Maybe that does not sound that compelling – but if you think of this as an extra & instant 50p per cup additional margin, then you do not need to be Einstein to see how quickly you can recover margin.

Ok, you say- but what about the machinery...? How do I pay for that?

Well, if you are using a semi-auto traditional machine like many in the trade, these can be purchased outright for as little as £500 upwards second hand. A good quality new unit could be yours after shopping around for £1500 upwards. These machines are literally ‘bomb proof’ & are an asset in your business, with a significant residual value – it really is a no brainer to spend now for a medium-term margin bonus… & at 50 p per cup, you can see how over literally just a few months the capital outlay is returned & repaid many times over.

Maintenance - The final piece of the jigsaw

Again, you will not be surprised to hear that you can find better & cheaper by using independent experts – all of whom can easily & cost-effectively provide your annual traditional machine boiler service or fully automatic machine service check from as little as £ 150 + VAT with a new filter for £100 + VAT.

Tick these boxes & you too could then enjoy a 3-star Guild of Fine Food quality coffee from the new Inn Express coffee range at just £8.99 per kilo! The convenience of bundling all your drinks orders together with your coffee & best of all the cost of knowing you are sourcing locally from an independent wholesale distributor is free