To start a cold brew coffee business, decide first whether you'll sell it refrigerated or shelf-stable, because coffee is a low-acid food and that choice decides the rules. Refrigerated cold brew, sold cold in bottles or kegs and kept cold all the way, is where a small maker usually starts: a licensed kitchen, a tested shelf life, a batch code on every bottle and a cold delivery route. Shelf-stable cold brew in sealed cans or bottles counts as a thermally processed low-acid food, which means a validated process, FDA registration and filings. Then price both bottles and kegs, because kegs to cafés often earn more for less work. Below is each step with real numbers.
The short version
- Coffee is a low-acid food; refrigerated cold brew and shelf-stable cold brew are regulated differently.
- Start refrigerated: licensed kitchen, cold all the way, a shelf life you've tested.
- Shelf-stable in sealed containers means a validated thermal process, registration and filing.
- Cost per bottle includes coffee, bottle, labor, cold storage and cold delivery.
- Kegs to cafés skip the bottle and often earn more per liter.
- Code every batch, date every bottle, and rotate oldest first.
- TaroStack keeps batches, coffee lots and use-by dates, and warns before stock expires. More below.
Refrigerated or shelf-stable
FDA defines low-acid foods as foods with a finished equilibrium pH above 4.6 and a water activity above 0.85 (21 CFR 113.3), and brewed coffee is typically above that pH. A low-acid food that's thermally processed and sealed in a container meant to keep it commercially sterile on the shelf falls under FDA's low-acid canned food rules: the processor registers on Form FDA 2541 within 10 days of starting and files a scheduled process for each product and container (21 CFR 108.35).
| Refrigerated cold brew | Shelf-stable cold brew | |
|---|---|---|
| Kept | Cold, all the way to the customer | At room temperature until opened |
| Main rules | State license, food safety practices, a tested shelf life | Low-acid canned food rules: validated process, registration, filing |
| Equipment | Brewing, filtering, bottling, refrigeration | Thermal processing or retort, often a co-packer |
| Fits | Local cafés, markets, grocers with fridge space | Wide distribution |
A sealed, refrigerated low-acid drink still needs care: keeping it cold and selling it within a shelf life you've tested are the controls that keep it safe. A process authority or food safety lab can tell you what your product and package need. This is general information, not legal or food safety advice.
What a bottle costs
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, adds a ready-to-drink cold brew, buying roasted coffee at $12 a kilo. Brewed at 1 part coffee to 10 parts water, a kilo of coffee and 10 liters of water give about 8 liters of cold brew; the grounds keep the rest.
| Per 12 oz (355 mL) bottle | Cost |
|---|---|
| Coffee, 355 mL ÷ 8 L per kg × $12 | $0.53 |
| Bottle, cap and label | $0.65 |
| Filters and water | $0.05 |
| Brewing, filtering and bottling labor | $0.40 |
| Kitchen time and refrigeration | $0.30 |
| Cold delivery | $0.15 |
| Cost per bottle | $2.08 |
At $3.25 wholesale that leaves $1.17, a 36% margin; at $5.50 at your own stall, $3.42. The bottle is the biggest single line, more than the coffee in it.
Kegs for cafés
| Per 5-gallon keg (18.9 L) | Cost |
|---|---|
| Coffee, 18.9 L ÷ 8 L per kg × $12 | $28.35 |
| Keg cleaning and handling | $3.00 |
| Labor | $4.00 |
| Cold delivery | $3.00 |
| Cost per keg | $38.35 |
At $85 a keg, that's $46.65, a 55% margin, from one container instead of 53 bottles. A café pouring cold brew on tap is also a standing order, which makes planning easier. The catch is the kegs themselves: they're your stock while they're at the café, so track which café has which keg and when it's due back. If you also roast, the roasting side is in how to start a coffee roasting business.
Shelf life, codes and dates
Set the shelf life by testing, not by guessing: store bottles at your fridge temperature and check them over time, with a lab where safety is the question. How to run a study is in shelf life testing. Print a batch code and use-by date on every bottle and keg, and keep a batch record: brew date, coffee lot, ratio, brew time and temperature, filtering, bottles filled, and who made it. Cafés and grocers often want a minimum shelf life left at delivery, covered in minimum remaining shelf life.
Where this stops working
At one café and one market, a notebook and a fridge work. Then there are six cafés on kegs, two grocers taking bottles, three coffees from two roasters, and a use-by date that's only a couple of weeks out. Bottles from Monday's brew sit behind Thursday's. Nobody's sure which café has keg 7. When a café asks which coffee is in this week's keg, the notebook might know.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps a cold brew business's batches, coffee lots and dates together, and watches the short shelf life for you.
Every brew is a batch, with its record. A recipe holds the coffee and water, and the bottles or kegs it fills. Record a brew and TaroStack takes the coffee from the lot you used, notes it in the batch record automatically, and gives the cold brew its own lot code and use-by date. Batch record forms are filled in with the batch, with your own fields (brew time, temperature, ratio), and a reading outside its limit is recorded and flagged.
Short dates get watched. Oldest date goes first everywhere stock is picked, so Monday's bottles go out before Thursday's, and each café or grocer can carry its own shelf-life rule. TaroStack forecasts what will expire before it's sold and what it'll cost, and alerts you to expiring lots, in the app and by email. Lot labels print with the date and a barcode.
Standing orders become a brew plan. Cafés are customers with their own orders, picking lists and delivery notes, and every delivery records which lot went out. Planning turns those orders and your own sales history into what to brew and which coffee to buy, shelf-life aware, and a recall report shows which coffee lot went into which kegs and bottles, and where they went.
| The job | Notebook and fridge | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which coffee is in this keg? | Maybe the notebook | The lot, from the batch record |
| Monday's bottles behind Thursday's | Found when they expire | Oldest date picked first |
| What will expire unsold | Found in the fridge | Forecast, with its cost |
| This week's brews | Worked out by hand | Planning from standing orders |
Lots, use-by dates, expiry alerts and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month; recipes, batch records, planning and cost per bottle are 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.