Sourcing Beyond Spot: Purchase Planning for Roasters 101
When I think about how the specialty coffee chain is organized, the first thought that comes into my mind is “juggling the risks” and “looking for someone else to take risks instead.” Bitter, but true.
The ideal, of course, would be “sharing the risks.” But we are not there yet.
Although specialty coffee roasters like to talk about direct trade—and how green coffee importers are earning too much money, making coffee producers poor, and are not transparent, etc., etc.—when it comes down to actually importing coffee with all the costs involved, suddenly the conversation changes.
Because then the game changes. You have to pay upfront, sometimes even financing the crop. Then comes the logistics, certifications, documentation, and storage. All of it happens even before you have the physical coffee in your hands and are able to start roasting and selling it.
That is a burden and a workload that is too demanding. It requires a lot of liquid capital available to invest upfront—something that is unachievable for many roasters who are just surviving month to month.
The Importer as a Supermarket
Therefore, the whole system of buying spot coffee—where coffee is stored in the green coffee importer's warehouse, always ready to be picked up—was a very sweet deal for many roasters.
It’s a situation where the green coffee importer functions like a supermarket, if you think about it.
Roasters can “come there” (check the offer list) and choose from shelves that are always full. They can even ask for samples first if they are not sure what to choose—try, think, make a decision. Meanwhile, that coffee sitting on the shelf has already been fully paid for by someone else. It is aging, it is taking up space at the storage facility, and that space costs money. And that’s not even talking about all the manual labor done to contract and bring this coffee there at the quality agreed upon.
The spot system started to crack during the pandemic when the logistics crisis made it impossible for coffee importers to maintain the same stock. Then the market changed entirely when the price of coffee went up, combined with lower crop yields globally.
Suddenly, coffee was not where it “used to be” for roasters—it wasn't just sitting waiting in the green coffee importers' warehouses. Roasters started to panic.
The Blind Booking Reality
It is fair to say that this situation has always been like that for a certain tier of coffee. Rare, difficult to find, small lots—these have almost never been available “at spot” because there was always a buyer for them. Or better said, buyers competing for them. Sometimes even before the lots are produced, the coffee is already booked for the next year. Blind.
So for certain coffees and certain buyers, there has always been another way of buying green coffee that is not spot.
What happened over the last few years is that because there was a shortage of spot coffee available, many coffee roasters finally understood something: if they do not plan ahead and continue to work the same way as before, by the time they need to go “to the supermarket” (aka the importer's warehouse), there might be no coffee available at all. Or at least, not the quality they are looking for.
How do we work when there is no spot coffee available?
I think this is my favorite topic by far—or at least one of my absolute favorites. Because it forces us to look at the specialty coffee chain with different eyes, see our actual part in it, and gives us a real chance to organize operations in a way that helps distribute the risk between all actors.
I see this shift not just as a temporary way to survive a moment of shortage before coming back to “normal”—but as a structural way to organize the whole operation of a coffee roastery in a healthy, sustainable way.
If we don’t buy coffee at spot, how do we buy it? Should we commit to direct trade? Are there other viable sourcing strategies available?
Step 1: The Demand Audit
First, what is required is strict production planning and a good understanding of your demand. If my operation stays exactly the same, how much coffee and what specific qualities do I actually need?
In this case, I am talking about real, data-driven demand—not your romantic desire of what you wish the demand should be. What do your people really want to buy? What are they already buying from you every day?
Because one thing is wanting to sell expensive microlots, and another thing is discovering that what your wholesale clients actually need is a clean, washed, stable house espresso every single day.
When you know what your current reality is, you can plan where you want to go:
Wanna try selling slightly more expensive lots?
Experimental fermentations?
Introduce a more basic everyday coffee?
Maybe some current positions are not selling as well as you expected them to? Do you know why?
Are you planning on opening more retail locations?
Are you planning on getting more wholesale clients? How many new clients did you actually get last year? What is your real rate of growth?
Step 2: Forward Contracting with Trusted Partners
After this kind of operational audit—which forces you to understand very well who you are and where you want to go—you are finally ready to plan your purchases.
If you have green coffee importers that you can trust and like working with, the best thing you can do is sit down with them and say: “This is my projected volume for the next year. I need you to book these coffees for me when possible.”
You do this before they are produced. Before the contracts between the green coffee importer and the producers or exporters are even signed. You are already committing to the volumes and saying: “This is me. I am working with you. This is what I want to buy from you, and you can count on it.”
Imagine how much easier your life—and the lives of your partners—becomes when you operate this way.
It requires an important mindset shift, but it is also what distinguishes an established, mature business from a chaotic one. You stop running around looking for the next flash-in-the-pan deal, a slightly better price, or a cheaper quick-fix. You analyze the market first, choose your partner or partners, and then you stick with them.
What does that do for the chain?
It gives the importers—and by extension, the producers—the concrete ability to plan for the future. It gives them room to breathe. They know exactly how much coffee needs to be sold and contracted. Because of that structural predictability, everyone gets better stability, better protection against market volatility, and no one is left guessing what tomorrow will look like.
Looks like a pretty good deal to me.
Yes, of course, from time to time you can still go “to the supermarket” and see what surprise lots are sitting on the spot list. But most probably, you will find out that the core coffees you booked beforehand are far better than anything you will find left out there on the shelves.
P.S. And of course there is a step 3 to it - which is “Audit and Repeat for the next year”.
