How do I take this to the next step?

[Justing30]

Hello everyone. Here is my quick back story and situation and hopefully you all can help me out. I've been roasting with a popcorn popper for a few months as just a fun hobby. My girlfriend does monthly craft & vendor shows and this past one I took some extra beans I had so the vendors could have free coffee while setting up there booths. About 9-10 of them came up and told me they loved it. 6 of them actually wanted me to make bags for them to sell to them but I told them it would be a few days.

So I was thinking, with these shows I may have potential to sell this and make some money doing something I enjoy. So now here are my questions.

Green beans are costing me about $5.50lb even if I sold as a 12 ounce bag the bag cost would still be around $5.50 with bag and label not counting time. Do people usually pay $10 or more for this because I know it's higher then our normal store prices in my area.

Also, using my popper, I can only realistically do maybe 3-4 bags an hour which isn't much. What would be the best way to scale starting off?

For those of you that sell, do you sell as whole beans or grounded up?

any tips or tricks to achieve more consistency since beans always change?

thanks so much in advance.

 

[JCF]

It all depends on how and what commitment you have to getting into the Coffee Roasting Business. There is a difference between providing free brewed coffee to friends and several people at an art's craft show, who like it, to actually roasting green coffee, and then selling it as roasted coffee. If you want to make money selling roasted coffee, I think you will need a reliable roaster, or have someone that does have one roast for you. I am not convinced that a popcorn popper will do the job. Additionally, to sell outside circle of immediate friends, you will also have to consider what form of business model you will want. Aside from obtaining the right green beans to make your mix, then roasting, and then packaging the coffee, there are liability issues with selling coffee to the public as well. You must consider all of the above should you decide to start roasting and selling coffee to the public for a profit. Think about it, consider + and -, and know that all things are possible.