Say Folks,

Does anyone have any hard numbers (or educated guesses) on the size of the semi-high-end grinder market? I mean the grinders in the $500-$1500 range. How many get sold each year across the major makers? The companies seem to be putting a good effort into improving their designs/models and are coming out with new ones all the time.

Are they selling 15,000? 25?50?100,000+?

Thanks for any tips/info.

M./

It seems to me that there really aren't that many 'prosumer' grinders at all. All that I can think of (Mazzer Mini series, Compak, Macap, etc) are small coffee shop grinders that are being fitted with a smaller hopper and used in a home environment only because there really are no 'prosumer' (grinders with high grind quality specifically made with the home user's needs in mind) being made. The only exception I can think of is the Baratza/Mahlkönig Vario.

The market is too small for any of the market research companies (e.g. Mintel) to follow. You didn't say why you neeed the information, but your best bet to research the subject would be to interview the major online retailers and try to get their educated guesses.

I work with small companies and startups on business planning and market analysis (among other things.) Accurate market sizing is always a challenge, but I think in this case the task is even more difficult than Marshall suggests. The online retailers know how many they sell, but it's unlikely they know how many their competitors sell. It's possible -- in some small industries the companies informally share information like that at trade shows, etc. -- but I suspect the players in this industry don't share sales figures.

One way to extrapolate the information would be if you could get one major manufacturer's figures. Say, how many Mazzer Minis were sold in the USA last year. Perhaps a friendly online retailer could get that information from the manufacturer for you. Then the online retailer could tell you the relative sales percentages for each grinder they sell (assuming they carry most of the prosumer models), and you could back into the figures for all the grinders. It wouldn't be precise, but would probably be in the ballpark. There are some factors that can throw off an analysis like this, though, such as online retailers pushing some brands over others because they like them, are an authorized distributor, get a better margin, etc. The same percentages might not hold for all online retailers.

Another complication is that the online retailer may not know how many grinders are purchased for small shops and how many for home use. They could omit obvious business names from the analysis, but that may not catch all the shops.

Finally, the above technique will only get you US sales. It would be a lot more difficult to put together a worldwide analysis.

My sense is that the prosumer market is not small, it's tiny, and it's correct that a lot of the gear we use is really designed for and sold to small commercial operations and caterers. Very few consumers would spend the kind of dough we spend and invest the hours and hours of time it takes to learn how to make good espresso and steam milk with the type of equipment we favor (which can produce the best taste, but is a bear to use.) The technical state of the art is such that high-quality home espresso making is not ready for the masses. It's going to take a lot of redesign and computer technology to produce a fool-proof automated espresso machine and steamer that produces a good product in the home. It could happen -- the coffee revolution in this country is just in its infancy.