The price list nobody wants to open
Green prices have moved again. The importer's latest invoice for the Ethiopian is noticeably higher than the last lot, and the landed cost includes freight you forgot about. Your price list was set a while ago, from a spreadsheet that took the green price, added a mark up and rounded to a nice number.
You know the spreadsheet is missing things. You are just not sure how much. So the question of whether to raise prices, and on which coffees, keeps getting pushed back.
Green price is only the start
A roasted bag carries far more cost than the green in it, and most of the extra cost varies by product. Roast loss differs between a light filter roast and a dark espresso roast. A 250 gram retail bag with a valve, a printed label and a letterbox box costs a lot more to package per kilo than a 1 kilo wholesale bag. Subscription parcels carry postage. Wholesale accounts may have loaned equipment behind them.
| Cost | Often in the price list? | Varies by |
|---|---|---|
| Green coffee per kilo | Yes | Lot |
| Freight and landed costs | Sometimes | Shipment |
| Roast loss | Rarely measured | Coffee and roast level |
| Bag, valve and label | Roughly | Bag size and design |
| Packing time | No | Bag size and channel |
| Postage and box | Sometimes | Channel |
What rough pricing hides
Rough pricing means some coffees quietly subsidise others. The 250 gram bags of a premium single origin may be earning much less than you think, while a wholesale espresso is doing fine. You cannot see which wholesale accounts are worth their discount, or what a price rise on green does to each product until after it happens. Decisions about new coffees, bag sizes and subscription pricing are made on instinct rather than numbers.
The costing model we build
- Green costs are taken per lot from the importer's invoices or contracts, with freight, duty and handling added as landed cost.
- Roast loss is measured from your own roast records, per coffee and roast level, rather than a single assumed figure.
- Packaging costs are held per component: bag, valve, label, box, tape, with current supplier prices.
- Packing and dispatch time is set per product and channel from your own estimates, which you can refine later.
- A cost per unit is worked out for each product, bag size and sales channel, and compared with its selling price.
- When a new lot is booked in or a supplier price changes, the costs update and any product whose margin has dropped below your threshold is flagged.
Where the data already sits in Xero, QuickBooks or your roast logging tool, we read it from there. The model uses your numbers and your assumptions, and every figure shows where it came from, so you can challenge it.
Pricing with numbers in front of you
When the next lot arrives, you see straight away what it does to the cost of each product that uses it. Price reviews become a short meeting with a list rather than a dreaded spreadsheet session. You can set wholesale price tiers knowing what each one leaves you, and you can test a new bag size or a subscription price before launching it.
Is your pricing based on the green price alone?
- Your price list is a mark up on green coffee.
- Roast loss is a single assumed figure, or not included.
- You do not know the packaging cost per 250 gram bag.
- You are not sure which coffees or channels make money.
- Green price rises reach your prices months late.