Advice on how to sell wholesale coffee to cafes is mostly about the pitch: visit the café, bring samples, follow up. That matters, but a roastery loses accounts for a different reason — it signs more than it can roast consistently, and the eighth café gets the rushed batch. This guide starts from what café buyers ask for, sets out the structure of a wholesale programme, then does the arithmetic sales guides skip: how many accounts each roaster size can serve.
What a café buyer is actually checking
Café owners describing how they choose a roaster list the same things in roughly the same order:
- Consistency first, quality second. A coffee that tastes the same in week twelve as in the sample, and arrives fresh on the agreed day.
- A range that covers the menu, including a decaf and, for many cafés, a single origin for filter.
- Training and support for baristas, especially when the café changes coffee.
- Equipment help — installation, maintenance, sometimes a loaned grinder or machine tied to a supply commitment.
- Pricing and terms: tiers, minimums, delivery included or not, credit.
- Distance and delivery day, because a café orders weekly and cannot wait.
Items 1 and 6 are production and logistics questions before they are sales questions. A roastery with a repeatable profile and a fixed delivery route can promise both; one without cannot, whatever the samples taste like.
The structure of a wholesale programme
Roasteries that keep accounts describe the same six elements, and the ones that lose accounts usually skipped one.
An account profile. Which cafés you want: size, location within your delivery radius, menu, volume. Chasing every enquiry produces a scattered route and a dozen tiny accounts.
Tiers and a minimum. A price per kilo that steps down with weekly volume — the method is in how to price wholesale roasted coffee — with a minimum first order and a smaller minimum for repeat orders, so a café is worth the delivery.
A written agreement. Price, tier, delivery day, payment terms, what happens to a loaned grinder if the account ends. Roasteries that run for six months on handshakes report the same result: no minimums, no routine, accounts that drift.
A delivery routine. One or two fixed delivery days on a route; beyond five or six accounts, a scheduled run beats delivering on demand. Roast to the route: Tuesday's accounts are roasted Sunday and Monday.
A service routine. A calibration visit at onboarding, a quarterly check-in, training when baristas change, and a way to log complaints.
A simple record. A spreadsheet or CRM with each account's volume, tier, delivery day and last visit. It is also the input to the capacity calculation below.
What a café orders — the numbers
A typical café takes somewhere between 5 and 25 kg a week; a busy one more, a small one less. Most orders are a house espresso plus one or two supporting coffees, and decaf is a small but expected line. Roasteries commonly keep any single account below about a quarter of their total volume so that one lost café does not break the schedule.
Those two figures — kilos per account per week, and accounts — are what size the roaster.
From accounts to roaster capacity
Work the chain from roasted coffee back to green, then to batches, then to hours.
| Accounts × average weekly order | Roasted kg/week | Green kg/week (÷ 0.85) | Roaster class | Roasting hours/week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 × 10 kg | 50 | 60 | 3 kg (SD-3) at 2–3 kg per batch | 5–7 |
| 10 × 12 kg | 120 | 140 | 6 kg (YS-6, SD-6 Pro) at 5–6 kg per batch | 6–8 |
| 20 × 15 kg | 300 | 350 | 12 kg (YS-12, SD-12 Pro) at 10–12 kg per batch | 8–10 |
| 40 × 15 kg | 600 | 700 | 15 kg (YS-15, SD-15 Pro) or 20 kg | 12–16 |
| 80 × 15 kg | 1,200 | 1,400 | 30 kg (SD-30 Pro, YS-30) | 12–16 |
Hours assume roughly four batches an hour with cooling overlapping the next charge, which is how our DY and YS machines with independent cooling motors run, and slightly fewer on the SD series. The 0.85 converts roasted weight back to green at 15% loss; details in coffee roasting weight loss and yield.
Two rules fall out of the table. A roaster should be running no more than about 60–70% of the hours you can staff when the account list is full, so there is room for a new account and a bad week. And the step from 20 accounts to 40 is a machine step, not a sales step — if the 12 kg machine is roasting 30 hours a week, the next account needs the next machine, with the lead time that implies: contact us for the current lead time on 1–15 kg machines, and allow 60–90 working days for the YS-20 and larger.
The equipment that wholesale adds to a roastery
Serving cafés changes the equipment list beyond the roaster.
- Repeatable profiles. A stored profile on a PLC — our SD Pro series — or disciplined reference curves in Artisan on the DY series, so week twelve matches the sample. The comparison is in manual vs automatic coffee roasters.
- A destoner. A stone in a café's grinder is the fastest way to lose the account; from around 6 kg per batch a destoner such as our YS-Q12 (12 kg per two-minute cycle, USD 2,109 EXW Shenzhen, USD, 2026) is standard.
- Bagging. Valve bags in 250 g to 1 kg, a sealer, and labels with roast date; the options are in coffee packaging equipment.
- A loader once you pass a few hundred kilos a week; the YS-20 and larger ship with one included.
- Loaned grinders. Many roasteries lend a commercial grinder to an account against a supply commitment. It works when the agreement covers ownership and return; it is a cost line, not a gift, and the grinder should be one you can service.
Winning the first accounts
The tactics that roasteries report working are unglamorous: become a customer of the café first; bring a sample roasted the way they will serve it — under milk if they are a milk bar; offer a calibration visit, not just a bag; and be honest about delivery day and minimum. Then deliver on the day for a year. Cafés talk to each other, and the second ten accounts come from the first ten.
FAQ
How do I start selling coffee wholesale to cafés?
Decide which cafés fit your route and volume, set tiered prices with a minimum order, put terms in a short written agreement, fix delivery days, and offer a calibration visit at onboarding. Approach cafés as a customer first, sample the coffee the way they serve it, and deliver on the agreed day every week.
How much coffee does a café buy per week?
Typically 5–25 kg of roasted coffee, mostly a house espresso, with one or two supporting coffees and a small decaf line. Busy multi-site accounts take more. Keep any single account below about a quarter of your volume.
What is a typical wholesale coffee minimum order?
Roasteries commonly set a first-order minimum large enough to justify onboarding and a smaller repeat minimum so a delivery is worth the run — a few kilos a week is a common floor. The minimum belongs in the written agreement with the price tier and delivery day.
Should a roastery lend equipment to wholesale accounts?
It is common and it wins accounts, but it is a cost, not a courtesy. Lend only against a written supply commitment that covers ownership, maintenance and return, and lend equipment you can service.
How many cafés can a 6 kg coffee roaster supply?
About ten accounts averaging 12 kg a week — roughly 120 kg roasted, 140 kg green — in six to eight roasting hours, leaving room to grow. Twenty accounts at 15 kg each is 12 kg-roaster territory, and forty needs a 15–20 kg machine.
What equipment does a wholesale roastery need besides the roaster?
A way to repeat profiles — PLC or logged reference curves — a destoner from about 6 kg batches, valve bags and a sealer, and a loader once volume passes a few hundred kilos a week. Our SD Pro machines from 6 kg include the loader.
Final Thoughts
Sell wholesale from capacity outward: know what a café orders, structure the programme so accounts stay, and match the account list to a roaster that runs at 60–70% of the hours you can staff. We build the 6 kg, 12 kg and 30 kg classes in the table, with destoners and loaders specified in the same quote. Tell us your account plan and we will size the machine.
Get a quote or message Leon on WhatsApp at +86 184 0771 4607.
Get a Quote → WhatsApp +86 184 0771 4607Last updated: September 23, 2026
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