Business plan for coffee roasting enterprise "KrasKof"

* Calculations use average data for Russia

1. PROJECT SUMMARY

The goal of the project is to organize an enterprise for the industrial roasting of green coffee with the aim of its subsequent sale through retail chains, HoReCa networks, mobile coffee shops, etc. The territorial location of the project is the city of Krasnodar. The trademark of the project is KrasKof.

Recently, coffee has become an increasingly popular drink in Russia, the culture of its use is steadily increasing. In this regard, there is a need for high quality coffee at an affordable price and with high logistical availability. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that roasted coffee loses its taste qualities over time, therefore, the fresher it is, the better. In this regard, it is advisable to create a local production for roasting coffee beans.

Table 1. Integral project performance indicators

The analysis of integrated performance indicators, coupled with the prospect of its long-term implementation, shows a fairly high investment attractiveness of the project.

2. COMPANY AND INDUSTRY DESCRIPTION

Coffee is becoming an increasingly popular drink in Russia. At the same time, the coffee market in Russia is one of the smallest in terms of volume, but the most dynamically developing. According to Euromonitor International, an analytical company, coffee consumption in the United States in 2013 was 1323 tons, in Brazil - 1174 tons, in Germany - 568 tons, and in Russia - only 221.7 tons. In 2014, coffee consumption in Russia increased by about 6 times, reaching 68% of the total population. At the same time, coffee sales in Russia doubled between 2008 and 2013.

Historically, instant coffee has been the most popular in Russia. Until 2010, its share was up to 85% in total consumption; however, the ratio has been changing in recent years and is expected to be 45/55% in favor of soluble by 2018. The market volume will be 131,000 tons, according to Euromonitor International forecasts.

The shift in demand towards grain coffee is due to an increase in the culture of consumption, as well as due to the popularization of the drink due to the increase in the number of stationary and mobile coffee shops. The entry of large international coffee chains into the market is also partially affected. The number of retail outlets selling grain coffee by weight is also increasing.

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Despite the relatively high cost of coffee beans, which is perhaps the highest in Europe, Russians are very loyal to the brands they are used to and do not give up on them even with further price increases.

An analysis of the regional market (Krasnodar) shows that there are 38 specialized coffee houses and 877 establishments where coffee is on the menu in the city. Given the city's population of 830 thousand people, the market for the product in question is quite wide.

According to RosIndex analytics, coffee is most often consumed by people aged 35-54, people with higher education or an academic degree, and Russians with a high income level. In addition, the popularity of coffee consumption among young people under the age of 35 is also growing. Given these data, we can say that Krasnodar is a highly adequate market for this project for a number of reasons. The population of the city is constantly and steadily growing, unlike most Russian cities. According to RBC, in 2013 the city ranked first in the all-Russian rating of cities with the most growing business activity, which indicates a fairly high level of well-being of residents; Krasnodar has the lowest unemployment rate in the Southern Federal District. Krasnodar is the largest industrial and agricultural center.

All of these factors make the market under consideration extremely attractive for organizing a project. The essence of the project is the purchase of raw green coffee, its preparation and roasting, packaging and wholesale. Project clients include:

HoReCa establishments - cafes (including coffee houses), restaurants, hotels;

Retail tea and coffee shops;

mobile coffee shops;

Operators of vending coffee machines.

3. DESCRIPTION OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

The main product of the company's production is grain roasted coffee. At the request of the customer, it can be ground. The enterprise carries out packing both in standard own packages, and in packages of the customer upon request.

Table 2. KrasKof coffee varieties

	Name	Description
		Botanical variety of Arabica. It has a clean, sweet, pleasant aroma. The taste is sweetish-bitter, with a slight sourness and oily texture.
		Arabica variety. Refers to the highest grades of coffee. Differs in the thinnest aroma and a fruit shade. Balanced acidity
	Maragogype	One of the varieties of Arabica. The taste is astringent and bitter, with subtle vinous tones. May have pronounced fruity and floral notes
	Colombia	A Catimor hybrid developed in Colombia. High acidity and, at the same time, high sweetness, density and purity of the cup
		The base variety of Arabica. Features high cup quality, sweetness, purity and body

Since the quality of the final product is largely affected by the quality of its roasting, KrasKof pays especially close attention to the operation of its roasting machines (roasters), as well as the qualifications of their operators. Each of the offered varieties can be roasted using KrasKof's own technology, as well as according to the client's recipe at the same wholesale cost of the product. In the first case, the manufacturer is fully responsible for the quality of the product. In the second case, the customer is responsible, which is reflected in the supply contract.

The priority method of shipment of finished products is self-delivery. In this case, shipment can be made within 1-2 business days after receiving the order. However, if necessary, the goods can be delivered by the transport of KrasKof sales representatives within 5 working days.

By default, KrasKof packs roasted coffee in 5 and 10 kg bags. At the request of the customer, coffee can also be packed in its branded containers of any volume. The service is free. Also, at the request of the customer, coffee can be ground on an industrial coffee grinder. The cost of the service is 100 rubles. for 1 kg.

Table 3. Purchase and wholesale price of goods

4. SALES AND MARKETING

The main distribution channels are given in Section 2 of this business plan. On Fig. 1 shows the estimated shares of each channel in the total turnover of the company.

Figure 1. Shares of distribution channels in the company's turnover

Active processing of the market is carried out directly by the owner of the project and the sales representative. The owner uses his own connections and acquaintances, and also connects to negotiations with key customers. A sales representative spends up to 70% of his working time on the road, conducting initial and ongoing negotiations with customers and potential customers.

Ready-made ideas for your business

During the first year of the project implementation, an active development of the client base takes place. In the future, the bulk of the client structure is made up of loyal customers who do not require significant attention from the sales staff.

The order from the client is transferred to the sales specialist, located directly in the office, by written request in person, by e-mail or fax. Payment terms are determined by the owner; for new clients it is 100% prepayment. Subsequently, discounts and deferred payment are possible.

Ready-made ideas for your business

There are two competitors in the regional market offering similar products and services. The intersection of the range of varieties is not more than 50%. The pricing policy of competitors is similar, therefore, at the initial stage of the project implementation, a moderate dumping strategy was chosen.

An important competitive advantage of KrasKof is the use of new high-quality roasting equipment from the market leader. This equipment allows to achieve high quality of the finished product, as well as to minimize the influence of the human factor in production. Competitors use used equipment from Russian and Chinese manufacturers.

The market does not have a pronounced seasonality. Coffee is consumed in any season. In the summer, however, the market shows some decline due to the decrease in the popularity of hot drinks during the hot season. Nevertheless, cold drinks are also prepared on the basis of coffee, and sales of mobile coffee shops in the summer are growing significantly. The sales plan takes into account all these factors.

5. PRODUCTION PLAN

The RosKof production site is located on the territory of an industrial complex on the southern outskirts of Krasnodar. The technology assumes the use of natural gas, as a result of which the production facility is selected according to the presence of a gas pipeline. The need for production space - 30 m 2, for storage - 40 m 2.

The manufacturer and supplier of equipment is a large German company, which is the market leader. With a relatively high cost of a roaster (roasting unit), it has a number of undeniable advantages. The use of gas, rather than electricity, as in most equipment on the market, allows you to achieve high quality bean roasting, uniformity and dynamics. The body of the roaster is made of cast iron, which allows to achieve high thermal inertia and significant durability of the unit. Ergonomic controls allow you to adjust the temperature if necessary.

The design of the roaster involves the simultaneous roasting and cooling of beans, which significantly reduces the time of the technological cycle. Its duration is 15-18 minutes. After being removed from the roaster, the finished product goes to the packaging area, and then to the warehouse. An industrial coffee grinder is also located at the packing area.

Since the technological cycle is relatively short, and the expected batches of single shipments are relatively small, there is no need for long-term production planning. Production is carried out in accordance with the received orders. Some quantity is produced to the warehouse in accordance with the general structure of sales by grades.

6. ORGANIZATIONAL PLAN

The enterprise does not imply a complex organizational structure. Management functions are carried out directly by the project owner. The subordination of all employees also occurs to the owner.

Market processing is carried out by a sales representative with a personal car used for the purposes of the enterprise under a lease agreement. Also, if necessary, the sales representative can deliver small orders to customers in accordance with their own travel schedule. Applications from customers are accepted by a sales specialist who issues invoices, controls their payment, and transfers applications to production.

The main requirements for qualification are imposed on the operator of the roaster. Since this niche is quite narrow, the experience of working with a roster is not critical. Important experience in production, preferably food, as an equipment operator, the presence of a sanitary book, responsibility, the absence of bad habits.

7. FINANCIAL PLAN

The financial plan is designed for five years and takes into account all possible factors of influence: seasonality, competition, sales structure, etc. All costs have been calculated. Variable costs (Table 3) refers to the purchase cost of raw materials. All other costs are classified as fixed. Depreciation is calculated on a straight-line basis over a period of 5 years.

The total investment costs amount to 4.3 million rubles, of which the entrepreneur's own funds are 1.0 million rubles. The remaining amount is attracted in the form of a bank loan for a period of 36 months. The loan is repaid by annuity payments, credit holidays are three months.

Table 4. Investment costs

	NAME	AMOUNT, rub.
Real estate
	Warehouse and office equipment
Equipment
	Equipment set
working capital
	working capital
	Purchase of raw materials
		4 300 000
Own funds:		1 000 000,00
Required borrowings:		3 300 000
Bid:		18,00%
Term, months:

Table 5. Fixed costs

№	NAME	AMOUNT IN MONTH, RUB.
	Rent
	Communal payments

Entrepreneurs Ilya Savinov and Alexei German in 2014 roasted and ground coffee for connoisseurs for 42.5 million rubles.

Entrepreneurs Ilya Savinov, Alexey German and Sergey Tabera

The idea to create a coffee startup came to friends Ilya Savinov and Alexei German in February 2011. The first one was already working in the coffee industry at that time: his father Andrey Savinov is the main shareholder of the SFT Trading holding, the second largest importer of green coffee in Russia. While working in the family business, Savinov discovered a lot of shortcomings in the logistics of roasters - companies that buy green coffee from importers and sell it to the consumer. “They buy and roast coffee, keep it roasted, waiting for orders to come to them, or send it to stores where it rots on the shelves, and as a result, the buyer receives a pack of “freshly roasted” coffee six months ago,” Savinov explains in an interview with RBC. . “We thought: why can’t we shorten this chain?”

Work for a cup of coffee

The founders of Torrefacto decided to roast coffee every day, so that no more than 48 hours would pass from the moment of order to its delivery. In May 2011, Savinov became an individual entrepreneur and invested his personal savings - 300 thousand rubles. — for the purchase in China of a minimum lot (15,000) of black bags for packing coffee, as well as for the development of a user-friendly website with a payment system. At the same time, a professional roaster Sergey Tabera, who had a small coffee machine repair business, joined the founders.

In November 2011, Torrefacto launched: its first clients, in addition to the friends of the founders, were visitors to the forum of professionals and coffee lovers Prokofe.ru. Orders began to come in, but their execution required more effort than the founders of Torrefacto expected. In order to have time to roast and pack coffee, they had to meet at 6 in the morning before each went to his main job. Hoping to recoup the costs as soon as possible, Herman offered to raise prices - they say, the service is exclusive, we fry especially for people. But a markup of 200-250% held back the growth in the number of orders. For the first month, entrepreneurs earned 10 thousand rubles each. “Everything was based on enthusiasm. We worked for a cup of coffee,” Herman recalls.

By the end of the third week of morning roasts, the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs had waned a bit. And three months later, Savinov and German decided to halve the prices and hold the roast once a week. "And that's when everything went!" Savinov recalls.

How does Torrefacto work?

Torrefacto takes orders for coffee during the week - until 20:00 Friday. After that, green coffee is sent to Sergey Tabera, who roasts it on the night from Friday to Saturday. In parallel, orders are registered in delivery services (Pony Express, PickPoint and Axiomus). Roasted coffee is placed in paper bags, loaded into a car in the morning and taken to the packing room, where it is ground and packed by special machines. Then the barcodes received from the delivery services are pasted, after which the orders are transferred for delivery.

Business model

By accessing the Torrefacto website, a client can order one or more of 30-40 varieties of coffee, choose a grind (from the finest, for cooking in a Turk, to coarse, in a French press), specify the volume of the package - 150 g or 450 g, and also the method of payment and delivery. Each of the varieties has a detailed description - almost all of them are written personally by Savinov, indicating the country where the coffee came from, describing the flavors and suitable brewing methods.

Since Torrefacto's idea is to deliver the freshest possible product to the customer, its founders roast each batch strictly to order, without storing roasted coffee in the warehouse. Torrefacto does not have a warehouse as such - in a small room at the carpet factory in Kotelniki, about a ton of green coffee is stored, orders for which are placed in SFT Trading during the week. Now the company processes 350-400 orders per week, roasting 700-800 kg of coffee every Friday.

By accessing the Torrefacto website, the client can order one or more of 30-40 varieties of coffee, select the grind (from the finest, for cooking in a Turk, to coarse, in a French press) and indicate the volume of the package - 150 g or 450 g (Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC)

As the number of orders increased, the business demanded significant investments, in particular in professional roasting and grinding equipment. Firstly, the bar coffee grinders that Torrefacto used at the initial stage quickly fell into disrepair. I had to splurge on two Swiss coffee grinders at a price of about 250 thousand rubles. for each to solve problems once and for all. “There’s a lifetime warranty on the millstones, it’s like a Lamborghini among coffee grinders,” Herman explains. Secondly, the company purchased used Serbian coffee roasters - each of the two machines cost 0.5 million rubles.

However, all these investments almost turned out to be useless: the depreciation of the ruble in December 2014 took the business into the red. Then the founders of Torrefacto decided on December 6, 2014 to switch to floating prices pegged to the dollar.

Torrefacto's monthly revenue fluctuates along with the dollar: for example, in March it amounted to about 4 million rubles. Almost half of all project costs are the purchase of green coffee (1.6 million rubles). The site also requires investments: in February 2015, its support cost 90 thousand rubles, entrepreneurs say (the external programmer from Voronezh, who works on outsourcing, is supporting and developing the site). 860 thousand rubles a month goes to salaries of employees: now in Torrefacto, in addition to the founders, three more people work who advise clients, maintain social networks and solve current issues. Torrefacto pays taxes according to a simplified system - every quarter it gives the state 6% of its income, that is, about 800 thousand rubles. As a result, the project brings about 220 thousand rubles to the founders. per month.

Now the company processes 350-400 orders per week, roasting 700-800 kg of coffee every Friday (Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC)

Torrefacto has 6,000 registered customers who have placed an order at least once, with three-quarters of them coming back for at least a second order. And this is far from the limit, Savinov believes. According to him, Torrefacto is ready to increase the volume of roasting by 5-10 times only with the current equipment and space. “A person is able to drink 1 kg of coffee per month. We need only 5,000 regular customers to grow five times - this is not so much for a city of millions, ”he is sure.

Torrefacto in numbers

6 thousand clients registered on the site

RUB 42.5 million the company bailed out in 2014

800 kg coffee Torrefacto sold per week

16% is the average roast coffee

100% is the average trade margin

Coffee, as we have noted more than once, one of the most popular drinks in the world. Our country is no exception. On the wholesale supply of coffee for HoReCa establishments, mobile and stationary coffee houses, boutiques, outlets with a tea and coffee assortment, you can build a profitable business. Roasting green beans on special equipment, packaging and their delivery to the customer is a popular type of service.

Organization of your business in this format will require investments in the amount of 70 thousand USD. Such an amount is necessary for renting and arranging a production facility for a roasting and grinding workshop, purchasing equipment, setting up a sales department to develop a customer base and process its applications, and purchase raw materials. This business niche can be called low-competitive. The average payback period for a business idea in a city with a population of over a million is 18-24 months.

HoReCa- a concept used by operators and market participants, denoting a segment of the service sector of the hospitality industry (catering and hotel industry) and a distribution channel for goods with direct consumption of products at the point of sale. The name "HoReCa" (acronym) comes from the first two letters in the words H hotel, R estaurant, C afe/Catering (hotel - restaurant - cafe/catering).

Services on which you can earn money: the main one is roasting beans, packaging in bags or packaging in customer containers, delivery, grinding, and sales of green coffee.

Varieties of Arabica, which you should pay attention to when buying: bourbon, mocha, columbia, typica, maragogype. These varieties and bred hybrids have interesting aromatic characteristics, a high degree of sweetness, a wide palette of flavors, high cup quality, therefore they are in active demand among consumers. The trade margin from the wholesale purchase price of green grains is 100%. It is recommended to keep several alternative suppliers with flexible payment terms in stock. It is necessary to allocate about 15-16 thousand dollars for the purchase of the first batch of raw materials.

As you know, the degree of roasting affects the final taste of coffee. Much depends on the equipment used. When preparing grains, you can use both your own technologies and take into account the wishes of a particular customer. German-made roasters have proven themselves well. Most of these units run on gas, have built-in thermostats, are equipped with a cast-iron basin, which ensures the correct temperature distribution and rotation dynamics, therefore, the uniformity of coffee processing. Simultaneously allow both roasting and cooling of grains. In addition to the roaster, an industrial coffee grinder is useful. The average price of the service of grinding freshly roasted coffee is $ 1.5-1.6 per 1 kg. A set of new equipment will cost $35,000. Expensive, but reliable and durable, easy to maintain, allows you to get high-quality coffee, speed up the technological process, and attract a minimum of personnel. There are cheaper options - Russian or Chinese roasting machines, used equipment, but they will also last less.

To search for customers, a sales representative with a personal car, a manager processing applications should be hired in the company’s staff, and the initiator of the business idea can also work directly with the customer base, to control the operation of the fryer and packaging - one operator (preferably with experience in food production ).

Target audience: owners of networks of vending coffee machines, mobile and stationary coffee shops, coffee boutiques and retail stores, HoReCa segment establishments.

In addition to active sales, it is effective to post information on the Internet on specialized resources, to participate in thematic exhibitions.

To open a business, you will need 60-70 sq.m. 30 is allocated directly to the workshop, the rest is a warehouse, office and utility area. If you use German roasters, you need to look for a gasified object. Rent - from $ 1000 per month. The cost of equipping a warehouse and an office will be $1600-1800.

In addition to the rent, the current expenses of the coffee roasting and selling business include depreciation ($500), utilities ($300), communication fees ($80), advertising budget ($500).

This business idea has practically no connection to seasonality, a slight decline is observed in the summer, when the demand for hot drinks drops in especially hot months.

In a black-black city, in four black walls, black-black boys in fez roast black-black coffee! So, according to the plan, this story was supposed to begin - about one of the largest roasting shops in the Urals, which was opened by the owners of a coffee house. And although not everything turned out as we imagined, nevertheless, it was decided to tell this story.

We were met by the co-owner of the Coffee Project. This time we did not start with questions - he asked what kind of coffee we would have. And then he was surprised for a long time that it was not a cappuccino, but an American: “The locomotive of all coffee houses is cappuccino. It gives about 70% of all orders. Everyone drinks cappuccino!” he explains. Moreover, according to him, there is a certain seasonality in this business: in winter they drink less coffee, and in spring the volume of consumption increases sharply and does not fall until the first cold weather.

“Coffee is a social drink,” says Ufimtsev. - When it's warm outside, people want to walk, hang out, chat over a cup of coffee. And in winter, they want to eat mostly (which we feel by the busyness of the kitchen).”

It is interesting that in the rating of the analytical center "Expert-Ural", compiled last year, Yekaterinburg was in first place in terms of the number of coffee houses per capita - there were 11.4 establishments per 100 thousand people. In second place was Perm (10.7), in third - St. Petersburg (9.7). Moscow and Novosibirsk closed the top five with an indicator of 7.7. But if last year, according to this rating, 163 establishments of this format worked in Yekaterinburg, today, upon request “coffee house”, the 2GIS directory gives out 277 positions. For comparison: in Perm - 155, Chelyabinsk - 111, Tyumen - 96.

Not surprisingly, most of the grain that is prepared in the Coffee Project workshop remains in Yekaterinburg.

“Let's segment it,” Pavel suggests. - Now we supply coffee to economy segment establishments (this is the main consumer), plus to coffee-to-go outlets that consume 20 times more beans than any restaurant. And our clients are coffee houses of the same format as Coffee Project, where consumption is also quite high.”

Fried Facts

The entrepreneur says that the roasting shop appeared in his plans almost simultaneously with the idea of ​​​​opening a coffee shop, since the quality of the beans on the market did not always correspond to his ideas of beauty. “The grain came across overcooked, old, tasteless,” he says.

He launched a coffee house together with his sister Alexandra four years ago in the Suvorov business center, and a year later a grain roasting workshop was opened in Bolshoi Istok. However, due to the fact that the road took an unacceptably long time, very soon a new building had to be found for production. Now the workshop operates in the center, not far from Suvorov, and its two full-time roaster masters roast four tons of grain every month (of which approximately 300-400 kg goes to the Coffee Project's own needs). In addition to Yekaterinburg, establishments in Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Omsk and other Russian cities buy roasting. In addition, part of the production goes to Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the company is on the verge of another move: plans to increase the volume to 7-8 tons of roasted grain per month. A new workshop is also required in connection with the company's big plans to increase b2c sales. For a long time, hands did not reach this direction: there was neither time nor energy, but now Ufimtsev has come to grips with an online store through which private customers can order freshly roasted grain.

“Many roasters have tried to establish such a distribution channel, but almost no one has succeeded,” says the entrepreneur. “The only company that does such a great job is Moscow-based Torrefacto.”

He has no doubts that his own project will take off too. According to him, people tasted and fell in love with high-quality coffee and now they want to drink it at home. So far, he is not ready to talk about numbers, but he assures that the growth is very good and there is a demand from the market. Thus, for 2017, the Coffee Project has "grand plans to reach the end consumer." Moreover, the emphasis is only on online sales: Ufimtsev does not intend to enter retail chains. A few years ago, he tried to scout the situation and came to the conclusion that the appetites of retailers will not pull (the price tag for being on the shelf starts at 50 thousand rubles, but he believes that this money is better spent on quality improvement and marketing). And the packaging itself from the store counter will not tell about the merits of the contents.

In a word, now Pavel Ufimtsev is looking for a suitable room to expand the area of ​​the roasting shop and the material and technical base. And if we are talking about the material, we ask him about the amount of investment in such a workshop. He says that a lot of money will be required, and equipment will be the main item of expenditure. “A good roaster costs between 30,000 and 70,000 euros,” he says. “You can also buy Russian-made ones, but only your customers probably won’t appreciate it.” True, in order for the workshop to work successfully, money alone will not work: you also need a suitcase of knowledge and competencies, and Coffee Project is very proud of this baggage.

Spin the drum

Roaster master Aleksey Platonov introduces us to the contents of this suitcase. It shows which processes have been automated (for example, the roaster runs on special software), and which cannot be trusted to the machine (for example, each batch of green grain passes through the hands of the roaster - he checks whether the raw materials were stored and transported correctly and if there is any garbage in it) .

Roaster master Alexey Platonov

In addition, the production has introduced its own know-how - the so-called "coffee passports". In fact, these are technological maps consisting of many parameters:

“Coffee is an agricultural product and it can change from season to season. In order to have a stable quality of roasted grain at the output, we have developed a coffee passport, which includes the classification and brand of raw materials and how we roast this coffee (temperature, time). Plus, it includes organoleptic characteristics,” talking about this, Alexey picks up small jars in which roasted grain is stored: these are control samples, according to which the roaster-master compares the color of the newly prepared batch.

Alexey also talks about the many nuances of roasting. For example, about the fact that during the stay in the roaster drum (a batch of 15 kg is fried for 8-15 minutes), the grain goes through three stages: first it is dried, and then the Maillard reaction starts, when essential oils begin to stand out from the grain. The final stage is caramelization, during which the grain bursts like popcorn. During the frying process, the raw material loses about 15% of moisture and increases by 70% in size. Depending on the type of coffee and the level of roasting, the temperature is selected: it can vary from 195 to 250 degrees.

Curiously, freshly roasted beans do not smell like coffee. According to Platonov, it smells like broth or buns, but it acquires that characteristic aroma, for which everything was started, only after a day. The most complete taste and aroma of coffee are revealed on the 3-4th day and stored in the grain for two weeks. Despite the fact that coffee according to GOST can be stored for a year and a half, after a month the grains lose half of their qualities, after six months the varieties cannot be distinguished from each other, and after a year, grain coffee cannot be distinguished from instant coffee at all.

Crisis to the rescue

Now the Coffee Project is buying green beans from a major federal importer (producers: Colombia, Ethiopia, Honduras, etc.) and plans to start direct deliveries from European suppliers to bring in micro lots (rare, terroir, varieties with a bright taste). The cost of a kilogram of such raw materials starts from 1 thousand rubles and reaches 10 thousand rubles.

One of these varieties, Colombia Luis Carlos Guzman, we are offered to try and they tell us that at tastings it is customary to take coffee from a spoon and draw it in with a loud squelch - this is how all taste buds open in the mouth. In the Coffee Project roast shop, such tastings (or cuppings) are held regularly - they are attended by guests of the coffee shop and customers who buy grain. There are also courses and master classes for barista - their own and everyone else. Grain that did not get into the passport is used for educational purposes.

Mr. Ufimtsev notes that the crisis has greatly helped Russian roasters, as Italy, which has become unprofitable, has left the market. Among his competitors, he singles out firms from Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Moscow, but says that in general the market has become more open - in the sense that before no one communicated with anyone, afraid to drop something superfluous, and now everyone is ready to share their best practices . This was shown, in particular, by the last PIR festival.

“Now we have quite favorable pricing,” he said. - On average, a kilogram of roasted coffee (that's about 100 cups of cappuccino - editor's note) wholesale costs about 1 thousand rubles, retail - 1400 rubles. No one is dumping on the market: players are trying to compete on the basis of quality and positioning (in which Moscow succeeds, since some companies from the regions order there just because it is the capital).

For my part, I would like to emphasize separately: we did not find a single dark-skinned boy in the roasting shop of the Coffee Project. But only black walls, black grains and bright people in all respects.

Anton Akifiev was the first in Russia to establish the production of capsule coffee. This is a margin business, but it turned out that the sale of roasted beans gives a big turnover. In 2016, the entrepreneur sold coffee for 60 million rubles.

“George Clooney is largely to blame for the popularity of capsule coffee in Russia,” says Anton Akifiev, founder of the Brill Café coffee brand. “Without Nespresso commercials with his stellar participation, people would perceive capsules as chemicals, additives, anything but coffee.”

In 2011, Akifiev was the first in Russia to start producing capsule coffee. However, Nestle and Lavazza failed to take any noticeable part of the market from the international corporations right off the bat. For three years, the company made losses, until the market collapsed, and customers began to look for cheaper options.

Capsules "Brille Café" are on average 25% cheaper than imported counterparts. With the development of the coffee business, it turned out that more significant turnover (albeit at a lower margin) is provided by the trade in coffee beans of their own roasting. In 2016, the wholesale trade in capsule and roasted coffee brought about 60 million rubles to the group of companies. revenue and 7 million rubles. arrived. And most importantly, retailers finally noticed the Russian manufacturer - the company signed contracts with X5 Retail Group and Metro Cash & Carry.

Students and fast food

Anton Akifiev, after graduating from the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, worked as a brand manager at the Russian representative office of North Winds Brewing Corp, where he promoted Foster’s, Edelweiss and Kirin beer brands. When Nord Winds acquired a winery in Moldova (Vinorium-Service), Akifiev took over as marketing director there. But the new business of the holding did not last long: in 2006, the chief sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation, Gennady Onishchenko, banned the import of Moldovan wines into Russia. “The company ceased to exist in one day,” recalls Akifiev. However, by that time Akifiev was already in full swing in the coffee business.

Back in 2002, Anton, together with his school friend Yaroslav Kulev, registered Widger LLC and bought a Samsung coffee machine for $2,000, which he installed in one of Moscow universities. On the first day of operation, the machine sold more than 80 cups of coffee. Six months later, Akifiev already owned 16 devices, which, as a rule, were in educational institutions: students turned out to be a profitable target audience. The main problem of this business is the high cost of buying vending machines. . Entrepreneurs had no money, but they wanted to scale the business.

In 2004, Akifiev signed a three-year contract with Nestle. The corporation provided the Widger company with Nescafe branded vending machines and coffee, and the entrepreneur negotiated with the owners of offices, cafes, gas stations about their installation and service. Property owners bought coffee for 8-10 rubles. per cup (Widger also had a share of this amount), and then they sold it to customers or employees for 70 rubles.

The entrepreneur also began to cooperate with the Italian coffee bean producer Caffe Mauro - this coffee, unlike Nescafe products, was no longer suitable only for fast food, but also for expensive restaurants. To do this, I had to register a new company - Rico Distribution LLC, because. the terms of the contract with Nestle did not allow working with other partners on behalf of the same legal entity.

Made in Tula

The idea to roast coffee on their own and pack it in capsules appeared in the 2008 crisis. “I felt a trend – thanks to the crisis, own production in Russia should have become a profitable business,” says Anton.

The entrepreneur decided to ride the growing wave of import substitution and create a domestic analogue of the famous Nespresso. He offered his partner Yaroslav Kulev to invest in production, but he refused. The partners divided the business and sold part of the devices.

To test the demand, Akifiev bought about 700 machines with capsules from the Italian company Binotti, spending 1.4 million rubles on this. They managed to sell them in Moscow in three months, earning about 2 million rubles. It became clear that there was a demand. In 2011, Akifiev found a new partner who supported the idea of ​​producing capsules. According to SPARK, 26% of Rico Distribution is owned by Renat Aisin.

Together co-owners for 3 million rubles. purchased a 550 sq. m and an adjacent plot of 24 acres in the village of Pervomaisky, Tula region. The former head of the Tula branch of Vidzhera, Sergey Trofimov (now the head of production at Brill Café, Akifiev's brand), who lived in the village and often passed by the dilapidated building on a bicycle, helped with the search for the premises. “This building was built by captured Germans after the war. They built it well, the foundation, the walls - everything stood, there was only a roof. Birch trees grew inside the building,” recalls Akifiev. According to him, the repair of the building cost 5 million rubles. - I had to take out 18 dump trucks of garbage, re-conduct communications, fill the floor. The partners spent 23.4 million rubles on the entire process of launching production.

They buy coffee in European ports, where ships with containers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Brazil, etc. arrive.

Roasted coffee was packed into capsules by an Italian capsule machine: it sucks the grains with a special “vacuum cleaner”, grinds them and packs them in packages of 7 g, and a nitrogen plant pumps oxygen out of the capsule. Monitor the quality of technology. “One day they decided to show off: they experimented with the process, and the coffee, in our opinion, turned out to be tastier than usual. But this batch of several tons was returned to us: people get used to one taste, and if a cup of coffee suddenly becomes different, it means that it has become worse, ”says Anton.

Brill Café first ordered capsule forms, film and filter paper from the Italian company Carte Dozio. And in 2015, a small plant for the production of plastic products from Chelyabinsk came to Akifiev with an offer to sell capsules of the same quality at 20% cheaper. “At first we were distrustful – the capsule mold itself costs $25,000, but here the local kulibins developed this mold themselves,” says Anton. “But we were pleasantly surprised by the quality.” Now "Brille Café" continues to work with the Chelyabinsk plant, saving 300-400 thousand rubles on the purchase of capsules. per month.

Brill Café founder Anton Akifiev (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo / RBC)

saving grain

It was difficult with clients at the first stage, Akifiev admits. “Convincing people that decent coffee can be produced in Russia at all is not an easy task,” he says. Ready-made capsules were planned to be sold to manufacturers and distributors of coffee machines, but entrepreneurs do not like experiments as much as ordinary consumers.

The capsule coffee market is divided into several formats by types of coffee machines. The most popular format is for Nespresso coffee machines (65% of the market) and Dolce Gusto (15% of the market), says Vyacheslav Timashkov, co-owner of the company producing Single Cup Coffee coffee capsules, one of Akifiev's followers. Brill Café produces capsules in the Lavazza Espresso Point (LEP) format. Such capsules occupy, according to the company, about 15-20% of the market.​

At the start of production in 2011, the Nespresso format was still protected by a patent, and releasing capsules for this format would be against the law. Therefore, Akifiev chose a narrower niche. He managed to negotiate with Russian distributors of Italian Lavazza coffee machines in the regions - Smolensk, Yaroslavl, Yekaterinburg, Sergiev Posad.

But LEP's market niche was small. A year and a half later, capsule production still hasn't made Brill Café a profit. Akifiev decided to expand the range. “We still roasted beans in our own production and came up with the logical idea to highlight one more line,” explains Anton. Now part of the grains after roasting immediately went to the packaging and sale, and the other part was still packed in capsules. Bean coffee "Brille Café" sold to restaurants and cafes, connections were established back in the days when Akifiev was engaged in servicing coffee machines.

In 2015, Brill Café accidentally left Russia. The company's distributor in Germany was Nikolai Rodler, a Russian immigrant living in Cologne. Akifiev met him through a mutual friend. Now Russian capsules "Brille Café" can be found in several fast food restaurants in Cologne. They are cheaper than from local suppliers. The company plans to look for new representatives in Europe and China. “China is generally a tasty morsel now,” says Akifiev. - Chinese 1.5 billion people - a huge market. And all these one and a half billion begin to actively drink coffee, whiskey, beer, smoke cigarettes - thanks to Western trends. The coffee market doubles in China every year.”

The first three years of work were unprofitable for the company, production reached zero only in 2014, and in 2015 it was possible to earn the first profit - 7 million rubles. Now about 60% of all coffee produced is sold in bulk to distributors, 30% - direct sales to restaurants, 10% - retail sales through online coffee stores. This structure has not yet had an important element - sales through retail chains. But now it appears, and the emphasis is not on capsules, but on the sale of beans of their own roasting.

Sell ​​directly

To increase sales, Akifiev decided to go into retail. He sent out commercial offers, but no one answered - Western corporations had already divided the market. Then the entrepreneur turned to the Ministry of Industry and Trade for help. “My partner and I just came to an appointment with the director of the consumer markets department, Denis Pak, told our story - they say, Russian manufacturers want to join the stream of import substitution, but we can’t go online from the street,” Akifiev recalls. “He made two calls in front of us – to X5 and Metro, and within two weeks I was meeting with representatives of both companies.”

Brill Café signed contracts with X5 Retail Group and Metro Cash & Carry in autumn 2016. In X5, Akifiev plans to sell coffee by weight: 12 types of coffee in glass "pockets", a coffee grinder and scales will be on the counter in the sales area. The buyer will be able to choose the desired variety and volume of coffee, weigh it, punch the barcode and take it to the checkout. The price for all varieties will be the same - 180-200 rubles. for 100 g. An agreement has been concluded with Rico Distribution LLC, X5 Retail confirms.

In the Metro chain, which targets small wholesalers, Brill Café will install a "vending corner". Products necessary for vending machines will be sold there: cups, spoons, sachets of sugar and Brill Café coffee beans. Akifiev has high hopes for this cooperation: he expects to increase the revenue of the group of companies to 110 million rubles. at the end of 2017. ​

Capsules now account for only 15% of Brill Café's output, the rest being roasted beans. But the margin on capsules is twice as high. Akifiev does not lose hope to instill in Russians a love for capsules. “The total volume of coffee consumption in the country is growing: it is fashionable, people take coffee with them, young people drink it. Ordinary coffee is already becoming something everyday, people are looking for new forms. And capsules, thanks to the skillful advertising of our competitors, can become a new trend,” he is sure.

He is no longer alone. In addition to Brill Café, a number of companies now produce capsule coffee in Russia: Moscow Coffee House on Shares, Live Coffee, Single Cup Coffee, Coffee Blues and Coffelover.

“Since May 2016, we also produce capsules, but we work in the format of Nespesso machines, and therefore we do not intersect with Brill Café,” says Vyacheslav Timashkov from Single Cup Coffee. According to him, the Nespesso segment is the largest on the market, and besides, the original has risen in price due to the weakness of the ruble. At the same time, despite the growth in the number of Russian manufacturers, the overwhelming share of the capsule market is still occupied by Western players. “It takes time for consumers to trust domestic coffee,” says Timashkov.