Is your own roasting coffee shop really a gimmick? What are the benefits of making your own coffee?

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"self-baking" has gradually become a high-frequency vocabulary in the coffee market.

For a coffee shop that focuses on coffee, coffee beans are definitely the soul. Because the main composition of coffee is only ground coffee and water, in the face of the rising tide of coffee in recent years, the selection of coffee beans has a great influence, whether it should be "self-baked" or which coffee beans to buy, it also bothers the bosses in the industry, large and small.

It is reported that boutique coffee brand GREYBOX COFFEE will open its third ROASTERS roaster in Beijing's Dongfang Xintiandi in March and will use self-baked coffee beans as a sign. The characteristic of ROASTERS roaster is that its coffee beans are roasted by its own factory and transported to the store, and coffee classrooms are set up, the coffee bean roaster is moved to the store, and consumers can visualize the details of coffee roasting and learn to make boutique coffee.

Pacific Coffee, on the other hand, launched its first self-baking flagship store, LUXE, in Beijing as early as December last year, with a coffee bean roaster, and staff roasted on the spot in the store, and they can get the roasted beans three days later.

Starbucks has opened its fifth Starbucks Coffee Roaster in Tokyo since it launched Starbucks Coffee Roasters in 2014. With the fierce competition in the coffee market, the homogenization of coffee products and store models is serious, and the coffee industry has become more differentiated and diversified. The emergence of "self-baking" innovation mode is actually caused by the market trend.

What are the benefits of a "self-baking" coffee shop?

Before understanding the reasons why major coffee brands are laying out "self-baking", let's sort out the coffee supply chain.

A coffee fruit has to go through many hurdles before it can be smoothly transformed into hot coffee and delivered to you. First, cultivation, planting, harvest and fruit treatment at the producing end, followed by raw bean trading, baking and retail by middlemen, and finally grinding, brewing and cup making on the consumer side. After these procedures, the bright red coffee fruit turns into a cup of fragrant coffee and is delivered to you. And this series of complicated processes is the so-called "coffee supply chain".

For the average consumer, "baking" is a term that seems to be near and far away. We all know that coffee beans need to be roasted, but we seldom come into contact with the baking industry. In fact, roasting is one of the highest gross margins of all processes in the entire coffee supply chain, with an average gross margin of 51 per cent, according to ICO (International Coffee Organization). As a giant in the global coffee retail industry, Starbucks is not only the largest coffee shop chain in the world, but also one of the top 10 largest bean bakers in the world. There are more than 20000 stores around the world, making roasting coffee beans a regular business of Starbucks.

And how high are the profits of the bakers? If we simplify the profits of the global coffee industry to 10 yuan, then growers will get 1 yuan, exporters will get 1 yuan, and retail coffee will get 3 yuan, while roasters can get 5 yuan alone. it is 50% of the profits of the global coffee industry.

Nowadays, the homogenization of coffee market is serious, which is limited in terms of overall design, research and development and innovation. How to find new dividends in the coffee market has become the highest goal for the rapid development of major coffee brands. At the management level of coffee shops, coffee beans labeled with "self-baking" will not only bring good benefits for enterprises, but also develop more store functions and bring consumers a new consumption experience, thus showing brand differentiation and opening up new sources of customers.

In addition, with the development of coffee consumption market, consumers' pursuit of coffee quality is also gradually improving. "self-baking" coffee shops can regulate and control the quality and stability of coffee beans to a certain extent. especially the two most important points in coffee shop management: freshness and stability of coffee beans. The shelf life of roasted coffee beans can be as long as a year, but the real "delicious" shelf life is only one or two months. As an agricultural product, the quality of raw coffee beans varies greatly every year, every region and even every batch. Reasonable planning of "self-baking" can not only provide coffee shops with freshly roasted coffee beans that are always in shelf life, but also control the changes in the quality of coffee beans from the source. At the same time, taking advantage of some consumers' beautiful misunderstanding of "self-baking" coffee = boutique coffee, "self-baking" coffee shop can also enhance the professional image of its own brand.

If you implement "self-baking", it will be of great benefit to both consumer experience and product quality. On the one hand, it can expand product items and enhance the professional image of the brand, on the other hand, it can "increase revenue and reduce expenditure", reduce costs and improve profit margins, and at the same time, it can also control the product quality to itself.

What are the thresholds for "self-baking" coffee shops?

Although "self-baking" has many advantages, it is not without barriers. On the contrary, coffee roasting is one of the most technologically demanding links in the entire coffee supply chain. Want to play "self-baking"? You need to:

1. The technology of roasting coffee is mature, and the characteristics of raw beans are fully understood, which can ensure stable quality.

two。 Working capital is sufficient, in general, it takes about 6 months to reverse the cost of raw coffee beans.

3. Make sure the coffee shop environment is suitable for baking beans.

For the first point, the importance of roasting coffee technology is self-evident, but the roasting coffee technology of general large coffee brands is not as important as the stability of coffee raw bean quality. Even in coffee shops that specialize in "boutique coffee", the greater the output of roasted coffee, the less able to guarantee the stability of the raw bean quality of coffee. Starbucks' own coffee farm is the best example.

Another feature of the coffee roasting industry is that the barriers to entry are extremely high. They must maintain a certain stock of raw and cooked beans, bear the loss of beans during baking, and the flavor of cooked beans will change over time. This makes commodity distribution, logistics management is also a very important issue, if there is no considerable financial resources is very difficult.

And it usually takes six months for bakers to buy raw coffee beans to sell ripe coffee beans or related products, so "self-baking" requires a lot of money to survive this long cash flow. In order to raise money, some "self-bakers" have to borrow heavily, with an average financial leverage of two. In other words, 50% of their earnings before interest and tax have to be used to repay the interest on their debt. Of course, if you combine the identity of "baker" and "seller" into one, you can virtually reduce the entire capital flow cycle and reduce the risk caused by the backlog of funds.

Finally, even the boutique coffee brands with money and technology cannot "self-bake" all their stores. The pressure of cost and sales is one of the reasons, and the limitations of store location and policy and environmental conditions are also one of them. With the opening of Starbucks Zhenxuan Coffee Roaster in Shanghai, the detailed rules for the examination of Open production license of roasted Coffee in Shanghai has also been formally implemented, and the examination of the production license of roasted coffee in various places will be gradually strictly regulated. It is no longer easy to have a store in the right environment to carry out "self-baking".

Thus it can be seen that "self-baking" is not something that any coffee shop can play with.

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