Launch Coffees Like A Pro

The never-ending task of launching coffee products and how to be good at it.

If there is one thing that coffee roasteries need to be good at it’s releasing products. Coffees are seasonal and vary from year to year. Roasters need to source, plan, cup available coffees, design labels, and promote and market constantly. Having a plan is key.

So you look at what green coffees are available and when. You have a calendar. You then need to decide what you need to buy. To simplify this task it is useful to think about the coffees you sell more carefully.

What coffee products to sell? Why? And Who are they for?

Think about your customers and try to group your products by their buying patterns. Some customers like to buy espresso for their Moka pot, others have espresso machines at home and like to play around. Some like to have ‘strong’ coffee for their drip coffee maker. Others want a fruit bomb or an experimental process and enjoy the surprise.

The same with the wholesale side. Some cafés only buy ‘interesting coffees’ to feature as a guest and do some social media around it. Others want a reliable espresso that works well with milk drinks.

What I’ve learned running Dark Habit coffee shop for 8 years is a great example:

After a lot of experimentation, I have narrowed the selection down considerably.
Limiting the choice for the customer created categories and product lines. This made it easy to sell. And a lot easier to choose what to buy too. I had two categories: Espresso and Filter. And 5 Product lines:

• A single-origin espresso, that was great in milk and juicy on its own.
• A decaf espresso
• A ‘daily driver’ filter coffee
• A fruity, washed process, filter coffee from Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia…
• An occasional natural or experimental processed coffee.

Each of the Product Lines serves a specific customer segment: with a price point, defined requirements (high-level flavour profile and preparation method) and a pretty consistent ordering volume.

Product Lines also helps to avoid overcrowding the offering with products that are too similar and compete with each other.

Divide and Conquer

Grouping your products into Categories and Product Lines will help you:

• Sell the right products to your customers easily.
• Choose the right amount of products to offer.
• Narrow down your buying parameters.
• Create a structure to your coffee selection, your customers can rely on in a “If you liked that, you’ll love this” kind of way.

There are infinite ways to group your products. Having Categories and Product Lines as two steps of separation is useful for most coffee roasteries. You can have as many Categories and Product Lines as you want as long as it helps you serve the needs of your customers.

Roasteries need to map out demand for specific products on a green coffee availability calendar. In a lot of cases, it is done in the green coffee buyer's head or on multiple complicated spreadsheets. Complexity is hard to communicate and therefore prepare marketing in advance.

Categories and Product Lines help the roastery think more about their products. Who they are for and how well they are performing overall. It also helps to plan. It’s hard to estimate how much of a specific green you need 6 months upfront. Thinking about the demand for the product line can help make better-informed decisions.

When you know what audience you are buying for, you narrow your buying parameters and it is much easier to source green, plan and launch products.

At Bean Mind we built this Production Planning tool for you so you can skip the complexity and enjoy your coffee.