The soaring price of a daily coffee has become a hot topic, with figures like $7, $10, or even $12 being thrown around. It's a challenging time for both coffee lovers feeling the pinch of rising living costs and cafes striving for profitability and sustainability. How can we strike a balance where consumers can still enjoy their daily brew without breaking the bank, and cafes can keep their doors open?
The Buzz About Coffee Prices: Are We Paying Too Much?
There's no doubt the hottest topic right now is the price of coffee. It used to be the avocado on toast, but now it's definitely the cost of that cup of coffee you enjoy on your way to work, in your favourite cafe, or even at home. All these crazy numbers are getting put out there. But the reality is, we need to come back and look at what is good for that everyday coffee lover and how a cafe can survive in these challenging times.
We know it's sometimes very hard to find something that works for the end consumer and the person producing that product. It's a delicate balance between profitability and sustainability for a cafe, but also the customer who actually wants to pay a reasonable amount for something they can get time and time again. So, in cafes, we've definitely had a range of takeaway cups and some dine-in options.
Introducing the 6oz Coffee Cup: A Win-Win Solution
Today, I want to let you in on a little secret: the 6oz takeaway cup. It's a win for the coffee lover and an absolute win for the cafes.
If you're a person who is a bit more budget-conscious right now, we get it – times are getting tough. The cost of living is going up, but you don't want to miss out on that cup of coffee. And if you're a cafe finding it harder to sell more coffee, you've got to have a price-conscious option. As prices keep going up from beans and throughout the market, you might have to make your current range more expensive. But perhaps you need to think about introducing a product that's going to suit that customer who is going to be price-savvy.
Understanding Coffee Sizes and Value: A Deep Dive
Let's break it down in a very easy way. We're going to talk takeaway cups, dine-in options, and the relevance between that cheaper cup of coffee a cafe can offer and you, as a consumer, can enjoy every single day and not miss out when you're feeling the cost-of-living pressures.
In front of me, I have our 8oz, 12oz, and 16oz cups. Here at Artisti, in an 8oz, we actually do a double ristretto. If you're familiar with our recipes, we put 22.5g in our standard double basket and essentially, we're running only a 1:1 ratio of espresso into this cup. When we hit our 12oz cup, we're actually putting a 2:1 ratio, so we're doing a full extraction through the same amount of coffee. When we hit our 16oz, we're putting the full extraction we put in our 12oz into our 16oz cup, and then we're taking half of that and popping it in the 16oz. So effectively, we have a half shot to do something else with.
So how does the maths work? We've got our 8oz with a double ristretto. If we were to double the 8oz, we end up at 16oz, but you can see that we're only putting three shots in it. And then we've got our 12oz which sits in the middle, which has the double shot which technically would be double the 8oz. So again, that's all a little bit weird.
Where the 6oz cup is our new hero, it fits perfectly in alignment with half of a 12oz. I know what you're thinking: "We're going to get less coffee." Well, that's fine. But we've got to look at what is a good option for a cafe to be able to support customers in having a good-priced option – something they can come and have every single day and continue to treat themselves when they're feeling a little bit of those cost-of-living pressures. You've got to have that something for you. So, the 6oz sits very well for everybody.
Let's make a couple of coffees to explain this a little better. We've got our standard double shot basket here, and we're going to split it into two dine-in cups. We'll have our 22.5g dose coming out of the grinder. If we were serving dine-in, this would be split between perhaps a cup of cappuccino or flat white, or perhaps a latte or an espresso. For this example, I'm going to do an espresso and a dine-in flat white.
So, we've got our two coffees in front of us, and as I said, we've split an espresso shot in either side. Now, if we were to compare a dine-in coffee to what we're doing takeaway, there are a couple of things that we sort of forget about. The same amount of espresso that is in these two dine-in cups is in one 12oz takeaway cup. We put a double ristretto in our 8oz. So technically, we've used exactly the same amount of coffee in these two dine-in cups as we're going to use in a 12oz takeaway. We're just wasting essentially the second half of the liquid in the 8oz because we're not passing it through to make the 2:1 ratio. So we can really group all of these together if we want to as a singular product.
The Cafe's Perspective: Profitability Through Smart Pricing
How do we actually work out some good maths here from a cafe perspective or from a customer perspective? Well, these products we're used to. We know what they're kind of worth in terms of value. At the moment, we're probably sitting around $5, $6, and $7 for your 16oz, give or take your particular market. Now, we know we want our prices to go up, and that's for you to decide based on your coffee cost. But if we start to look at some maths from a cafe perspective first, because if a cafe can't make money, you're not going to be able to come and enjoy a cup of coffee every single day. So, we do need to keep looking after cafes and supporting them, whether it be a takeaway or a dine-in option. And we have to be realistic about what we're paying for in those scenarios.
If we were to take the coffee and milk that's in a 12oz, because it has the same amount of espresso that's in our two dine-in cups, we can make two of these 6oz coffees. It's really simple; we just divide it in half. We're going to have a little bit of extra cup cost because we'll have another lid and another cup and a little bit of extra labour involved in that process. But from a cafe, that makes it a very effective option.
What we're really paying for in the dine-in scenario is the experience: the place you get to sit, the furniture, the people you hang out with, and most likely the free Wi-Fi. A cafe has to pay for all of those goods. They need to wash the cup. They need to serve you and basically pay rent and a lot of other things. So you should expect to pay more for a dine-in cup.
The Customer's Gain: Affordable Quality, Uncompromised Experience
Are you actually losing out by buying a 6oz takeaway versus a dine-in option? Well, you're not! If I grab a 6oz cup and pour a dine-in flat white straight in, it essentially fills the 6oz cup. They're very similar in size. From a dine-in perspective, we can enjoy a dine-in coffee. We can have a takeaway quick option. This 6oz takeaway might need to be priced a little bit cheaper so that people can grab and go quickly, and perhaps a dine-in cup could be a little bit more expensive.
I want you to consider that if you are a person that enjoys your everyday cup of coffee, you will pay a little bit more for a dine-in cup. Maybe you can get a quick grab-and-go takeaway option at a little bit more cost-effective option because we don't want you to miss out.
But how does that work for a cafe? If we flip it and think, "well, they've got to be profitable." We have again the same cost of goods in our 12oz as we do as our two 6oz, not including the cup or lid. We've got a little bit more labour, and we have to maybe look at different milks or whatever it might be in terms of producing these two products. But from a raw cost of goods, milk volumes and coffee volumes, it's identical.
Earlier I was talking about the 12oz cup being the $6 option. Now again, $6 might not be a price that you can afford as a cafe customer every single day. By taking the raw cost of goods here and splitting it into these two 6oz cups, we can get a good amount of espresso in there at a great ratio with great milk. And we might look to price this 6oz at, let's say, $4.
In our lineup, we now have a $4 (6oz), a $5 (8oz), a $6 (12oz), and our 16oz at $7. That gives the customer an opportunity to choose a different price point as you go up along the line. But from a cafe, essentially, you've got the same raw cost of goods. And instead of this 12oz being our $6 coffee, we've actually now turned it into, let's say we make these 6oz coffees $4 each, we've made it $8. So now we're making $2 more from the raw base cost of the coffee and the milk.
From a taste perspective, we always look to think about how the milk versus coffee ratio in all these different cups actually relates to the enjoyability of the cup. Well, this math is identical. It's exactly half of each other. So you're not missing out. You're getting the same taste; you're just getting a little less volume. So it's actually the best ratio if you were to have a cafe to keep things exactly the same. You can use those split shots in your cups. You could have this 12oz as your large, essentially matching your mug dine-in or your large takeaway. And your customer is going to taste the same whether they're getting a quick takeaway in a 6oz as they would in a dine-in flat white or cappuccino. So, it actually works across the board for everybody.
Join the 6oz Revolution!
I hope that's helped you understand why the 6oz really is the hero right now in the coffee industry, not only for the cafes but also for the end customer. We've got to look at a way where we can start to price things that are profitable so that cafes do survive. But we know that people are feeling those pressures around cost of living and inflation, and they don't want to take coffee out of their day-to-day. Our whole industry thrives and survives around the volume and the number of coffees that are sold every single day.
So if you're a cafe, go and have a look, investigate what does a 6oz look like in your lineup of coffees. And if you're a lover of coffee, perhaps consider, don't not go to the cafe, but go and enjoy a 6oz. And if you're going to have a moment, go and enjoy it. Find a great place, sit down, relax, and pay that little bit more for that dining experience, because it's never going to be the same as you having a coffee at home with your friends when you're out there in that beautiful environment having a good laugh.
I hope that's really helped you understand how you could save money but get good value, be a cafe, remain profitable, and really survive this huge price issue that we seem to all be talking about. If you have any more questions, please pop them down below and I'll see if we can start a bit of a banter chat between the community. Have you put a 6oz into your lineup already? I'd love to know the feedback that you're getting if you're a cafe. Are you a person that used to drink a 12oz and you've gone down to the 6oz because of the price? Pop it all down below. Love to see what's happening in the community and continue this conversation.
