A high-grade coffee machine is a popular addition to any office. As coffee culture has gripped the nation, people are demanding better brews at home, on the high street and even at work.
Commercial bean to cup coffee machines have been created to serve exactly this market.
Commercial bean to cup coffee machines let you make barista-quality drinks without the barista. Users simply push a button and the machine grinds the beans and pumps out tasty coffee in seconds.
To keep clients, staff and visitors happy and productive, more and more offices are choosing to install these high-quality machines on site.
Installed in a break room, conference room or reception area, these bean to cup machines can create frothy coffee creations like flat whites and lattes without the barista.
Most businesses choose to lease their commercial coffee machines because of the flexibility, the service cover and the tax advantages. Leasing costs are easy to see on a website like Coffee Seller.
But running a coffee machine in your office also holds less visible costs, which we will explore in this article.
For offices that choose to monetise the coffee machines with coin-operated systems, we will also look at how much you could expect to earn with a commercial bean to cup coffee machine and some of the other hidden benefits of commercial coffee machines.
How much does it cost to run a commercial office coffee machine?
When choosing whether to install a commercial bean to cup office coffee machine, it is important that you have a good understanding of what it is going to cost.
As well as the leasing costs, we will look at costs like ingredients, energy and maintenance for offices. We will also look at a cost estimate for different types of offices.
To make the calculations simpler, we have made a few assumptions about your staff and how they drink coffee. If these don’t sound right for your office then you can feel free to adjust the numbers to suit your workplace.
Assumptions
- Each coffee drinker drinks about two cups of coffee per day.
- Each month contains around four and a half weeks and 22 working days.
- Each drink contains 8p worth of coffee beans.
- Each drink contains 4p of milk, other ingredients and other supplies.
Commercial coffee machine rental
Most companies like to lease a commercial coffee machine, negating the high initial costs by making regular payments.
The most expensive machines cost around £70 per week. Advanced touch screen machines like the Franke A800 Commercial Bean to Cup Coffee Machine can make the full range of drinks at a high rate and usually have additional features like a milk fridge and cup warmers.
Compact machines like the laRhea Variplus eC Bean to Cup Commercial Coffee Machine start at £18 per week. These machines still offer a full range of drinks to keep staff and customers satisfied.
Beans
Coffee beans are available to buy in bulk from the website. Coffee beans are the most expensive ingredient that you’ll use and you’re likely to go through it at a fast rate.
As a rough estimate, we have calculated that coffee beans should cost no more than around £3.50 per person per month. Remember, this figure might go up and down based on how much coffee employees drink.
Milk, other ingredients and cleaning supplies
Coffee beans aren’t the only ingredients that you’ll need. Staff might also want milk, sugar and other ingredients to their hot brew. You will also need cleaning supplies to keep your machine clean and the coffee tasting its best.
Fortunately, these ingredients and sundries are relatively cheap. All of this should cost no more than £1.80 per person per month.
Energy
Commercial bean to cup machines can use a significant amount of energy when they are in use, but it is considerably less than an espresso machine.
Energy use will depend on the size of the machine and how much it is used. But whatever machine you choose, energy should cost no more than £5 per month, even in a busy office.
Total costs
For a cheaper machine, will cost around £86 per month for machine leasing and energy costs plus around £5.30 per person per month depending on use.
A larger machine like the Franke A800 Commercial Bean to Cup Machine will cost around £320 per month plus around £5.30 per person per month depending on use.
To illustrate how much a commercial coffee machine might cost in your office, we have put together a few illustrations.
A small office with 8 staff
A small office with a laRhea Variplus eC Bean to Cup Commercial Coffee Machine will cost approximately £122.40 per month if everyone is a coffee drinker and they all have a couple of cups per day.
A large office with 100 staff
A large office with 100 people will need a larger machine with a faster rate of production. If they used the Franke A800 Commercial Bean to Cup Coffee Machine and everyone was a coffee drinker on two cups per day £850 per month on the office coffee machine.
A serviced office with 300+ tenants
A serviced office with a high number of tenants may look to install a traditional espresso machine to provide a higher quality service. But a high-quality commercial bean to cup machine like the Franke A800 will meet the requirements. A serviced office with more than 300 people can expect to spend £1,910 per month on running a commercial coffee machine.
How much can you make from a commercial coffee machine?
Some businesses will choose to provide coffee to their employees for free, for some of the reasons explained in the next section. But other businesses will seek to recover costs or even profit from an office coffee machine.
Commercial coffee machines can be fitted with a coin-operated mechanism to collect money and it is largely up to the client how much they charge for each coffee. Because the cost per cup is so low, even a small charge can help businesses more than recovering the cost of a commercial coffee machine.
Using the examples above, a small office with eight members of staff would generate £176 from the coffee machine if they charged just 50 pence per cup and all the other numbers stayed the same.
With the same low price, a large office with 100 members of staff would generate £2,200 while a serviced office could make £6,600 from 300 tenants.
If you are charging for a coffee then you might expect people to drink less coffee, but this also means that running costs will be lower.
Other benefits of commercial coffee machines
As well as the potential to profit from installing a commercial coffee machine in your office, there are other less obvious ways that businesses can benefit from high-quality on-site coffee.
The caffeine in coffee can improve mental performance and alertness and can be a boost to office productivity. Research indicates that coffee can also lead to improved memory, mood, energy and cognitive function if it is consumed in moderation.
Other research suggests that having three cups of coffee per day could lengthen lifespan, lowering the risk of several key conditions including heart disease, indicating that an office coffee machine could improve health outcomes for your staff.
Having a coffee machine on site also means that staff won’t be going off-site to grab a high-quality coffee from the local Starbucks, saving them money and keeping them around in case you need them. The coffee machine can also act as a meeting point in your office, building camaraderie between staff and acting as a high-tech replacement for the office water cooler.