How is your roasting business coming along?

[Slayton]

I started a home roasting business a year ago here in SE Alaska.  The permitting and regulations are incredibly strait forward here but they do change from state to state.  For Alaska, the rules state that the sales are to be direct to the customer (no wholesale) and are limited to $25,000 a year.  I started with the Huky because it was the most affordable fully manual drum roaster I could find and I wanted to learn how to roast and test my local market.

The response has been great and there have been times that I have been stretched quite thin between roasting coffee and working my 40+ hour regular job.  I decided to not do any kind of advertising early on because I was afraid of not being able to keep up with demand and I was getting more and more customers through word of mouth and the exposure from working small farmer's markets throughout the summer.  I find that I can consistently yield 2.5lbs an hour of roasted beans which isn't very much.  So I am now working on getting a larger machine, still small, that would yield a bit over ten pounds an hour and finding a commercial kitchen space to do that.  Going commercial, even on that small scale, is a huge leap forward in terms of the permits and regulations needed.  I'm not drowning but I am definitely swimming.

[JavaBuzz]

I'm not planning to venture down the self-owned roasting business path anytime soon, but almost all professional roasters I've talked to have mentioned to me, if seriously considering starting a roasting business, you should attempt to purchase at least a 10kg roaster from the beginning (some have said 5kg being the absolute bare minimum, but not recommended).

The above makes it so you only need to roast once to a few times a week (instead of every day), and those free days can then be used to promote your business, interact with customers, work on billing and paperwork, etc...

However (on the flip side of the above), if you start on the Huky, the Huky could still become a good sample roaster for down the road (if local regulations allow) while providing some very good experience to improve your skills.

[thusband]

I'd like to get a definitive explanation of the permit process for roasting in my attached garage in Santa Clara County, California.  I've written the Public Health Dept but so far the response has been pretty vague.

[Turboner]

Check county of Santa Clara Department of Env. Health, Consumer Protection Division.

[thusband]

Check county of Santa Clara Department of Env. Health, Consumer Protection Division.

Great!  I can't seem to find anything about my situation so I think I'll stop in next week but this looks like the place to start.

Many thanks.

[SusanJoM]

And for a dose of reality from Alan Frew on HB today

a successful coffee roasting business depends more on business, logistics and cupping skills than rote repetition of blend recipes and roasting profiles. Blends are transient, depending on annual crop results. Roasting profiles vary with each new crop. In 30 years in the coffee industry I've only personally known 2 people who started out burning beans and graduated into successful, long term coffee business owners. I've known many more who entered from outside the industry then succeeded because they had excellent prior business skills. Roasting coffee isn't that difficult, running a profitable coffee business is.

the bold is my editorial emphasis....:-))))