Coffee is the number one beverage in the world. Gourmet coffees and traditional brewed coffees are enjoyed by people in every city and town, every morning, afternoon and evening of every day. Scandinavia has the world’s highest per capita annual coffee consumption, 26.4 pounds. Italy has an annual consumption per capita of only 10 pounds.
No matter how you like your coffee, whether it be black, frothy cappuccino, latte, espresso, hot or on ice, the selections available to tempt your taste buds is enormous. The average annual coffee consumption of the American adult is 67 gallons, over 600 cups. In fact, specialty coffee sales are increasing by 20% per year and account for almost 8% of the 18 billion dollar U.S. coffee market. Statistics show that among coffee drinkers, the average consumption in the US is around 2.3 cups of coffee per day. Also, studies find that over one-half of the population, equivalent to approximately 150 million Americans, now drink specialty coffees on a daily basis.
The United States is the world’s largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20 million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing one-third of all coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee. An astute business person should seriously consider the gourmet coffee business as a recession-proof opportunity.
Gourmet coffees, also known as premium or specialty coffees have an attractive gross profit margin, compared to traditional brewed coffee sales. For example an espresso based drink may retail in a coffee shop for an average price of $2.85, while the average price for brewed coffee is $1.38. Your gross profit margin is approximately 77% on each, thus you would make $2.20 on a frothy creation and only $1.06 on a brewed cup. Your espresso machines and other equipment may run a little more; however, the additional profits are well worth the added capital expenditures.
The United States imports over $5 billion worth of coffee every year. Juan Valdez and his little donkey must be keeping very busy! Americans drink 460 million cups of coffee every day, which makes the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the entire world.
A bit of coffee trivia: Independent coffee shops manage to sell 38% of espresso-based drinks, while the rest is brewed coffee. 65% of all coffee is consumed during breakfast hours, 30% between meals, and the remaining 5% with other meals. Women say that drinking coffee is a great way to relax. Men say that coffee helps them get the job done. (Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.)
More than half of all Americans, 18 or older, drink coffee every day. This equates to approximately 150 million daily java drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; such as mocha, latte, espresso, cafe mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, and so on.
Coffee is increasing in popularity every year. This is a great business to get into. Coffee is the number one commodity in the world next to oil. You would be hard pressed to find any other product that has such universal appeal with such an extraordinarily high profit margin.
