Manufacturing Sequence in Coffee Roasting Company

As soon as you hear the tittle, you are obviously thinking about machinery, green coffee, roasted coffee and a nice packaging. And you are absolutely right, although beyond that things mentioned there are quite tedious process long before the coffee being published in the company website or marketplace till it reaches you or your favorite coffee shops in town.

Manufacturing Sequence is etymologically meaning production process using machinery that can be scaled based on the supply and demand of each particular industry. First and foremost is sourcing raw material which in this case green coffee. Usually in the coffee consuming country, they have a few green buyer or trader or broker that offering seasonal coffee available in their warehouse in the country. Sometimes, specific trader will do their offering sample in advance before even the coffee arrived in their warehouse. But it is will be different case in the coffee producing country which mostly relay on sourcing directly to the origin. Furthermore, there are various contractual concept in green coffee trading before entering the warehouse in each coffee roastery.

Picture 1 - Delivery Unload - Photo credit to Bunista Roastery, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

During coffee harvesting season in producing country, most of the trader or broker are preparing their down payment to book their lot, even some coffee producer has been sending their samples of their current harvest to them as part of their contractual deal each year or to release their new offerings which we usually called as offering sample. A few weeks or months later, the producer are sending approval sample which in this stage, the coffee have been harvested and separated by lot or process correlated with buyer standard of physical quality, flavor and quantity. In this situation where the point of no return for the producer because some of them had been process as green coffee and ready to be shipped. Last stage will be the pre shipment sample where everything had already finalize between producer and buyer. The whole sequence in coffee trading might be similar for a roasting company in the producing country but with less rigid contractual terms and direct feedback.

Picture 2 - Bag Inspection after arriving in the roastery - Photo credit to Bunista Roastery, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

First step our main focus in the coffee roasting company are once the green coffee sample being received at the roastery, your immediate action to check if there is potential defect followed with density, moisture, size and water activity level if necessary, plus utilizing sample roaster to check their sensory attribute to see the potentials whether the coffee good as single origin or a blend component.

Secondly, we need to check their available quantity and prices to forecast the consumption weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. Then we begin the purchasing process and begin to prepare the warehouse to store the coffees. In this stage, we can have the coffee in one shipment or partial shipment based on our roastery warehouse capacity to store the coffee. Also the terms of payment need to be clearly mention either 100% or credit. It is will be beneficial for the roasting company if the payment can be proceed by credit terms, because as a business, it is all about cash flow to keep the business afloat, unless we will running out of capital and the manufacturing will be delayed.

Picture 3 - Production Lines / Machinery at Bunista Roastery, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

Third step scaling up the production, we might wasting a few batch to maximized the coffee by gathering data and feedback from our sides and customers. After that, the promotion and listing on the company website or marketplace. Usually we are working together with coffee influencer or some artist on the packaging, marketing campaign and advertising to boost the sales. Once we are in this stages, we need to be sure and accurately measure the stock availability and the product shelves life while trying to make slight adjustment on the roast profile to find a better flavor expression in the product itself which is the coffee. In this case especially in any brewing method from espresso to percolate brewers at home or coffee shops. It is quite tricky to match that quality standard that we set in our roastery with home user, because the set up will be far much different than in a coffee shop which we can also help them to set up and calibrate the coffee if necessary.

So those three step above are simplified version of common practice we do in every roasting company, but beyond that the tedious process and rigid contractual trading agreement you need to get along with. Once the company getting bigger, you will need specialized team to deal in each sections of the business. And of course the fun part is developing the profile and get to taste the flavor expression of each coffees with your meticulous roasting technique.