Inc. Spills the Beans on Coffee Services

Various coffee services used by companies and the cost per cup.

When we queried a number of modest-size businesses to determine how they answered employees' bottomless demands for office-sponsored coffee, solutions ranged from installing a machine that custom-brews a cup in a few seconds to dispensing a secretary to the doughnut shop for a few minutes. Of even wider range were the number and types of services, from international corporations to ad hoc locals. Of widest variation was the per-cup cost of the elixir itself.

Eight ounces of office brew can be bought for as little as 3¢ to as much as 15¢, if not more. That's a gap worth exploiting: the mere hint that someone's shopping around, we found, can trigger a bidding war.

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Potential # Cost/
Company Vendor of Drinkers 8 Oz.
ABC Supply Sunrise Coffee Service, 35 6¢

Beloit, Wis.; Beloit, Wis.;

regional building- local supplier

material distributor

THE SCOOP: ABC used to handle its own coffee, but now, with 35 employees working at corporate headquarters, it has turned to professionals to manage its single coffee maker. ABC still keeps an eye on the budget: it purchases no allied products. Sunrise projects average corporate monthly coffee consumption for a company ABC's size to be about 700 8-ounce cups. ABC is right on target.

Cash America Neighbors Coffee Service, 100 5.5¢

Fort Worth; Dallas; part of a

pawn-shop chain regional chain
THE SCOOP: At $116 million in sales, Cash America employs a full-time kitchen manager, partly to wrestle with the intricacies of coffee service, partly to bake cookies to go along with it. For a case of 42 1.5-ounce bags with built-in filters, Neighbors Coffee charges Cash America about $20 for each of its 18 monthly cases of regular coffee and about $24 per case for the decaf. Nondairy creamers go for 2¢ each; a packet of sugar, 1¢; a paper cup with handle, 4¢.

Potential # Cost/
Company Vendor of Drinkers 8 Oz.
PSS ARA Cory, 20 5¢

Jacksonville, Fla Jacksonville, Fla.;

medical-supply branch of

distributor national company
THE SCOOP: A lone coffee maker in the company lunchroom dispenses twice as much regular as decaf -- pretty much the universal office drinking ratio. A case of regular, a Colombian roast, costs $26 and yields 504 8-ounce cups; a case of decaf costs $24. Vendor-supplied sugar costs about 2¢ per teaspoon.

Reference Uncommon Grounds 60 12¢

Software Gourmet Coffee Inc.,

International Berkeley, Calif.;

San Francisco; local supplier ,

software publisher

THE SCOOP: The company goes through up to four pounds of coffee a week, a bit below vendor's projection that 60 employees ought to use six to seven pounds a week. The laid-back rate can be accounted for, says the company, by Californians' taste for herbal tea. Reference pampers coffee devotees by paying $5.85 to $6.35 a pound for its vendor's best.

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Thinking Machines Filterfresh, 430 15¢

Cambridge, Mass.; Wilmington, Mass.;

computer-hardware franchisee

developer

THE SCOOP: Filterfresh uses a proprietary coffee maker that, on individual command, forces aerated water through a single easure of grounds, preparing a customized cup in 10 to 15 seconds. The plumbed-in apparatus dispenses about 200 cups of regular plus 100 cups of decaf before reloading. Employees don't waste time waiting for the next pot.

Tracks to Adventure a nearby military 3 3¢

Caravan Co. commissary

El Paso; recreational or the supermarket,

vehicle tours
THE SCOOP: One household-type coffee maker is loaded with communally funded off-the-shelf coffee at $4.99 per 39-ounce tin. The brewer produces two pots a day. Last one to leave turns it off, or there's hell to pay in the morning.

-- Researched by Susan Greco and Chris Caggiano