A coffee roasting business plan sets out what you'll roast and for whom, what each bag costs and sells for, where and how you'll roast, and the first year month by month, including the lowest point your cash reaches before the roastery pays for itself. A small roastery has low fixed costs and a wide margin on every bag, so the plan's real question is volume: how fast you can sell 300 bags a month. In the example below, a roastery in shared space reaches full speed by month 11, makes its first monthly profit in month 6, and its cash bottoms out at about $4,670 below the start in month 5, covered by its $4,800 of working cash with only $133 to spare. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the projection, and a free template.
The short version
- Open with a one-paragraph description: what you roast, for whom, where, and the first year's goals.
- Cost a retail bag and a wholesale bag, coffee, bag, labor, gas and card fees.
- Decide your mix of retail bags and café accounts; it sets your volume and your margin.
- Describe the roaster, the space, green coffee buying and the records you'll keep.
- Project 12 months with sales ramping up slowly; coffee customers come one at a time.
- Make sure the working cash covers the lowest cash point, with room to spare.
- TaroStack runs green lots into roasts and keeps every bag's cost real. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Pali Roasting Co., a made-up coffee roaster I use in these examples, opens its roastery. Its description reads:
Pali Roasting Co. is a small-batch roastery on Oʻahu, roasting single-origin and blended coffee for home brewers and independent cafés. We roast on a used 2 kg roaster in a shared roastery space, buy green coffee by the bag from importers, and sell 12 oz bags online and at a weekly market, and 5 lb bags to cafés. Every bag carries its roast date, and cafés get theirs within three days of roasting. In the first year we plan to reach 300 retail bags and 60 café bags a month by month 11, and to cover our monthly costs from month 6.
Part 2: what a bag costs
The bag costs come from is a coffee roasting business profitable, where every line is worked through:
| Per bag | 12 oz retail | 5 lb wholesale |
|---|---|---|
| Green coffee, after roast loss, at $7.28 a kg | $2.47 | $16.50 |
| Bag and label | $0.48 | $1.10 |
| Labor to roast and pack, at $20 an hour | $0.67 | $1.50 |
| Gas and roaster upkeep | $0.20 | $1.34 |
| Card fees, 3% of retail | $0.54 | |
| Cost per bag | $4.36 | $20.44 |
| Price | $18.00 | $46.25 |
| Contribution | $13.64 | $25.81 |
Roast loss is the line to watch: green coffee loses weight in the roaster, so the cost per bag is the green price divided by what's left. How it's worked out is in roast loss and cost per bag.
Part 3: customers and prices
At full speed the plan sells 300 retail bags and 60 wholesale bags a month: $8,175 of sales and $5,641 of contribution. Retail earns more per pound, and cafés buy steadily. Name how you'll reach each: a market stall and an online shop for retail, samples and a tasting for each café you approach, and a wholesale price list that fits a café's own margin.
Part 4: operations
| Area | In the plan |
|---|---|
| Roasting | A used 2 kg roaster, on a loan, in shared roastery space; ventilation if the space needs it |
| Green coffee | Importers, landed cost per kg, how many bags you hold, how long they keep |
| Packing | Valve bags, labels with roast dates, a heat sealer |
| Records | A roast log for every batch: green lot, weight in and out, profile, who roasted |
| Selling | Online shop, market, café deliveries |
Licenses, registration and the rest of starting out are in how to start a coffee roasting business.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
The plan assumes sales start at 15% of full speed and reach 100% by month 11, against $2,400 of fixed costs a month: shared space, the roaster loan, marketing and samples, utilities, insurance, software and website.
| Month | Retail bags | Café bags | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 45 | 9 | $1,226 | −$1,554 | −$1,554 |
| 2 | 60 | 12 | $1,635 | −$1,272 | −$2,826 |
| 3 | 75 | 15 | $2,044 | −$990 | −$3,816 |
| 4 | 90 | 18 | $2,453 | −$708 | −$4,523 |
| 5 | 120 | 24 | $3,270 | −$144 | −$4,667 |
| 6 | 150 | 30 | $4,088 | $420 | −$4,247 |
| 7 | 180 | 36 | $4,905 | $984 | −$3,263 |
| 8 | 210 | 42 | $5,723 | $1,548 | −$1,714 |
| 9 | 240 | 48 | $6,540 | $2,112 | $398 |
| 10 | 270 | 54 | $7,358 | $2,677 | $3,075 |
| 11 | 300 | 60 | $8,175 | $3,241 | $6,315 |
| 12 | 300 | 60 | $8,175 | $3,241 | $9,556 |
The year ends $9,556 ahead, on top of paying for the roasting hours. The monthly costs are covered at about 43% of full speed, which is why the roastery turns a profit in month 6. The tight spot is month 5, when the cash is $4,667 down against $4,800 of working cash. If sales come a month slower, the cash runs out; a plan worth showing a lender has a cushion here.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Example | |
|---|---|
| Scale, sealer, grinder, first green coffee, bags and labels, licenses, ventilation, website, samples | $6,210 |
| The roaster, about $9,000, on a loan repaid in the fixed costs | |
| Working cash | $4,800 |
| Total to start | $11,010 |
Get the template
Download the coffee roasting business plan template. Type your bags with their price, cost and monthly volume at full speed, your fixed costs and startup budget, and how fast sales will come; it works out each month's sales, profit and cash, the first month with a profit, the lowest cash point, and whether your working cash covers it. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The plan's $4.36 bag assumes 15.3% roast loss and roasted coffee at $7.28 a kg. Then a darker roast loses 17%, a new origin costs $8.40, three cafés ask for a 10% volume discount, and a bag of green sits until it tastes flat. None of it shows in the plan's spreadsheet, so the roastery runs on a cost per bag that stopped being true in month 3.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack runs every green lot into its roasts, so the cost per bag stays true.
Green lots, landed. Green coffee is received by lot, with its origin, the supplier's lot and freight spread across the delivery, so each lot's cost per kg is what it cost to land. Stock is costed in FIFO layers or moving average.
Every roast, costed. A roast is a batch: it takes green coffee from the lot you roasted, records the weight in and out, and puts the roasted coffee into its own lot with its roast date. Its cost is divided by what came out, so roast loss is in the cost automatically, and recipe truth shows if a profile loses more than it should. Packing into bags takes valve bags and labels off stock too.
And the plan's numbers, checked. Margins are reported by product and by customer, on what each bag actually cost, so you see whether a café's discount still leaves the contribution you planned. Stock that isn't moving shows how long since it last went out, so the green bag going flat is visible before it's a write-off. Planning works out what to roast and what green to buy from your orders and your own sales history.
| The plan's line | In the spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per bag | $4.36, from before opening | Every roast, at what the green really cost |
| Roast loss | 15.3%, assumed | Weight in and out, every batch |
| Which cafés earn their discount | Unknown | Margins by customer |
| Green going stale | Found when it tastes flat | Stock not moving, days since it last went out |
Lots, stock value, roasts and true cost are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning is on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.