I have been roasting coffee now for a couple years just as a hobby for myself and friends. I think I want to start a small business now as just a side hustle. I would love anyone who has made this leap from hobby to job to help me not make common mistakes, or to hear what you did that worked well and what you'd change if you could go back. Any and all advice is welcome.

Hi! This is exactly the path I took and now do roasting as my full-time job as of around 3 years now. I started out of my garage roasting on a huky500 and my wife would go to a local farmers market and sell the 10 or so bags that I had roasted that week. We really were just gauging if there was interest without investing a lot and there seemed to be a market.
We decided to take the plunge and invest in a 5k roaster after 2 seasons of doing the farmers market and that coincided with the covid lockdown and I was told not to come back to my job which turned out to be a good thing for us as it afforded us the time to focus on getting proper packaging designed and a website up so we were ready by the next season to really market our coffee ( we live in a heavy tourist area in the summer). I always planned on returning to work but roasting kind of took of and I (fingers crossed) haven't had to resort to working a real job since
Our strategy has always been to focus on bringing delicious coffee to our direct community but because there's not many options for wholesale we really have to focus on marketing to tourists in the summer and really depend on those online purchases in the winter. So far we seem to be doing ok financially (ok as in just barely scraping by but living our dream)
We are very lucky to have access to a incubator kitchen that houses our roaster and we are charged hourly so that makes our rent expenses relative to our sales, that definitely takes some pressure off.

I'm still really new to all this and luckily haven't made any mistakes that have had a real negative impact to note but I'd just recommend getting your space locked down, we almost didn't get our space at the incubator kitchen after we had put our deposit down for the roaster and that for sure had us in a panic.

I'd say go for it and especially if you can do it without going in debt, I definitely have zero regrets. Even if I went back to building houses ( my previous career) tomorrow I would look back at all of this with positive thoughts. I've met a ton of really great people and have learned so much.

Let me know if you have any other specific questions, hopefully I've been helpful.
Tony

savagebrood wrote:I have been roasting coffee now for a couple years just as a hobby for myself and friends. I think I want to start a small business now as just a side hustle. I would love anyone who has made this leap from hobby to job to help me not make common mistakes, or to hear what you did that worked well and what you'd change if you could go back. Any and all advice is welcome.

Know your states laws for cottage food business. For instance, in my state I need a commercial kitchen. Home production is no go. .... Except for production on farms. There is a small roaster near me that has a small suite in a strip center, they roast a couple of days a week and sell mail order. I haven't even seen their coffee in local stores.... And there's several grocery stores within a mile of their roasting location. That tells me it's not as easy as one would hope. A friend of mine started a craft distillery in the same strip center, which is how I came to know the roaster was there. After about a year he sold his half to his partner and was glad to get out with his $40k he spent back.

In NC, coffee isn't regulated at all. I can literally roast and sell with no oversight.

A quick glance shows NC does not have any cottage food laws. That means federal food laws prevail. My first phone call would be to the NC Dept of Ag and ask. First rule of business, never assume anything.

In North Carolina, Cottage Food Laws allow certain foods to be prepared and sold without requiring a food service establishment permit or inspection. However, coffee is not included in the list of approved Cottage Food products.

Cottage Food Laws in North Carolina allow the following food products to be sold without a permit or inspection:

Baked goods such as bread, cookies, cakes, and pastries
Jams, jellies, and preserves
Candies and confections
Dried fruits and nuts
Honey and maple syrup
Sauces, vinegars, and spice blends

If you plan to sell coffee or any other food or beverage product not listed in the Cottage Food Laws, you will need to obtain the appropriate permits and licenses from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Get educated on the regulations. You likely will need a food protection manager certification. Some states may require a commissary. My state is cottage food friendly and include coffee but I still needed the proper training, certification, and licensing from my local health department. Your local health inspector is your friend and will guide you through the requirements.

You may be limited to only face to face sales and not permitted to sell to resellers such as grocers, cafes, or wholesale accounts. You may not be permitted to ship. Make sure you get your information directly from the horse's mouth. Call your local health department and get a packet. Do it right from the start.

Mbb wrote: I haven't even seen their coffee in local stores.... And there's several grocery stores within a mile of their roasting location. That tells me it's not as easy as one would hope.

Putting your coffee in grocery stores isn't always easy or a good idea. Unless they're really small chains with a lax corporate structure, you have to jump through hoops to get a contract with them as a supplier and have to meet certain requirements (hello "expiration"/use by date on your coffee bag), you have to keep up with them, usually you're responsible for the product until it gets to the register whether it goes "out of date" or breaks open, the store decides to remove your coffee, or someone steals it

It's funny because buying roasted coffee would not bother me in the least........regardless of where it came from. I'm sure we've all seen pictures of the coffee picking and processing.......hygenic no?..... What scares the crap out of me is anything preserved...... Thats ... How you can die if somebody does it poorly....botulism. I wont purchase any such thing except from real mfg.
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You say you have been roasting for friends for 3 years. Are you charging them? If not, are you going to start? Have you asked them if they would start paying you market value for the coffee they have been getting for free? Again, don't assume. If you have been charging them, are you charging them market value...enough to cover your costs for investing in a larger roaster and all the other things that go along with having a business? And even if you are charging market value, have you factored in the time that it takes to get coffee from your roaster to their hands and money from their hands to your bank?

There is very little margin in roasted coffee beans. You cannot have even a 10-minute conversation with someone every time you sell a bag of coffee. Lots of roasters start out by thinking that since their friends and family love their coffee so much, it would be a logical transition to a small business. Let me just say that after 8 years in the coffee business, I do not sell any coffee to friends or family. As good as you think your coffee is, do not make the mistake of thinking it is so good that people will go out of their way to get it. It might be a big deal to you; it's just coffee to them.

I started by doing farmers markets on weekends. I worked all week at the day job and then all weekend doing markets on Saturdays and Sundays. I kept all the equipment loaded in the SUV overnight on Saturday to avoid reloading Sunday. Since I only had one vehicle, this limited my Saturday nights to Netflix at home. I did this 7-day/week schedule for almost 3 years.

The other issue is insurance. In NJ, farmer's market organizers require vendors to have business liability insurance to protect themselves. And in order to get a business liability insurance policy, you need to have a bonafide business, which means registering with the state as a business. I don't think there is such a thing as "side hustle" insurance. When it comes to food, it is very difficult to maintain a hobby business. You really need to have one or the other.

I found it difficult to sell beans without offering brewed coffee so people could taste it. Food laws for selling coffee drinks is vastly different than selling whole beans. You might be able to skirt them if you are giving it away for free, but I got many requests from early farmers market shoppers to sell brewed coffee.

The good news is because I did all this the right way, when an opportunity came up for me to join a brick and mortar indoor food market as their full time, dedicated coffee shop, I could say yes because I laid the groundwork already. A few years later (height of Covid) I open a second shop and then a much bigger roaster and a space to roast properly. I still don't sell wholesale, retail in grocery stores or online much and doing very well.

You could always reach out to a local roaster and buy time on their machine. I know a couple of guys that have a pretty successful business (Sprudgie candidate) that roast on someone else's Loring.