price of beans ?

ryan

I always use fresh roasted beans but the price difference around is a lot.

I use one online roaster. great beans roasted fresh $10.00 500 grams. some of the best ive had.

bought some from TOBYs on the weekend in sydney. their house blend. Lovely. 100 grams $6.00 roasted 3 days earlier.

My shop accross the road house blend 250 grams $6.00 roasted weekly.

the price difference is amazing for common house blends. seeing as the raw beans for all is a similar price.

500 grams $10.00 100 grams $6.00

what a difference ?

any opinions or is it just what the market is out there and people charge what people are prepared to pay ?

cheers

joe

Probably what the market will tolerate - what sort of beans are they to be charging $60/kilo??

sharkboy

The prices you have mentioned sound cheap, except for the Toby's. I think a fair price for your run of the mill, mid range SO or blend would be around about $32 per kg. I'm fairly sure green bean prices have risen lately, so prices may be due to rise if they haven't already. You'll often find that you get a better deal on kilo lots but I'd prefer to buy smaller amounts more often. The other alternative is homeroasting. The Toby's I've purchased from a local cafe, sold for $11.50/250g... -Stephen-

ryan

I agree tobys overpriced 100 grams $6.00 for a houseblend i think beware buying coffee from another shop that is not the primary roaster. there is a good chance the beans are more than 3 weeks old. (3-4 week seems ideal time limit) while at tobys most beans for sale in the hoppers were two weeks old, except for the houseblend which was 3 days old. if they are sold to other stores its a fair chance they are getting on. i was surprised as they roast on premises but do only smaller lots of different blends. not bagging tobys but im just saying you really need to see a roast date on packages i think to be fair to all. tobys do this in the store to their credit. but from other re sellers no. perhaps others have an opinion on this. cheers

lars

You've got around 0% chance of Toby's being fresh in other stores, and even in their own store, they have the beans sitting around in the hoppers for several weeks. Re: price, of all the 'boutique roasters' in Sydney, they've got the marketing thing working best - the beans they're using are no different from anyone else's, but they're experts at PR and you pay the price! Lars

sharkboy

I've bought Toby's beans from a cafe (reseller) that have roast dates on the bottom of the bag. The beans were delivered once a week, so if you catch them on the right day the beans can be within a couple of days of roasting. I've also seen Toby's beans when I was in Tamworth that had roast dates going back 7-8 months. I assume it is the responsiblity of the retailer to keep only fairly recent roasts on the shelves...? Not sure what advice retailers get from roasters in terms of older stock, or if the the reatailer follows the advice. -Stephen-

nzroaster

You also have to take into account the fixed costs involved. For every bag of beans(regardless of size) you have fixed cost of the bag, the labels, the labour to pack the bag. These can be in the region of $2 per bag depending on the size of the roasting operation. It is very hard to control how long your resellers have the beans, it is up to them as well to order correctly. This can be one of the trickiest parts of dealing with keeping your coffee fresh out in cafes. Sometimes you feel like you are doing their ordering for them.