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Yeah, it seems like the people in that article didn't even do the most basic napkin calculations. My estimate is: you could start a towed coffee trailer for 10
by stef25 6y ago
Yeah, it seems like the people in that article didn't even do the most basic napkin calculations.
My estimate is: you could start a towed coffee trailer for 10-12K, about 8K of that on the trailer, the rest on some basic equipment and decoration.
Rent the espresso machine & grinder for 150 / month (including maintenance & repair) instead of buying for 8K. Food & drinks wholesale: croissants are 0.2, donuts 0.5, fancy Italian water 0.6 and they sell for at least 3x as much
As the article says, even the most deluxe coffee is cheap. I calculated a cost of 1.09EUR for a latte, including 10g of coffee, 300ml of fair trade milk, a bio degradable cup + lid + sleeve and takes 3 min to prepare.
The hard part is learning to operate a professional espresso machine and dealing with the local laws about food trucks.
But yeah, best not during a pandemic.
- azernik 6y agoI would argue that you're underestimating labor costs - your baristas still need to be paid even in between customers, when there's no latte-making to do. At my work, labor costing is something we don't even try to model, because it's much more complicated than food costing. Food cost at 30-35% of sale price, as it sounds like your latte cost indicates, is pretty much in the sweet spot for food service; it's also nice in that most of the ingredients for coffee keep well enough to minimize food waste. Pastries are more of a challenge to do efficiently.