Selling your roasts - What to do?

[MFurre]

Hello guys!
My first post on CS.

I am looking into getting the Behmor 1600 Plus roaster. I've been playing around with roasting for coffee in a Popcorn Maker for myself, but want to take things a step further.
Obviously with the Behmor, I would be able to roast enough coffee to just start selling some to my friends.

What I am wondering is: Does anyone have any experience in selling your roasts?
I am thinking more in the terms of Australian business laws and taxation etc.. Is there a limit to how much you could sell just to your friends etc?
I am not looking at making a lot of money on this (as of now) just maybe being able to pay off the investment of the roaster, and to cover the costs of the beans. Just want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing and not creating a "black marked" of coffee.

Hope that someone can help me out to get some clarity around this!

Thank you!

[readeral]

Selling your roasts - What to do?

Probably just a hobby dude. A business or a hobby? | business.gov.au
Obviously that needs to be determined by you and your context - but if you're not intending to make profit, or have contracts or agreements with your friends, just sharing the burden of cost (like a co-op), you're unlikely to receive any interest from the ATO.

[WantRancilio10]

Welcome
Making this revenue neutral would be pretty easy too. They supply you with the green you supply them with the roast - and keep some for yourself - and no money is involved.
Anyways... I don't think a Behmor would be considered commercial least of all by the commercial roaster competition.
I'm not an expert on this but provided you don't advertise I think home roasting with a behmor would have to be considered a hobby.

[Andy]

I agree with the above. There are 100's of CS'rs that roast for friends and family if for the only reason that they can try a lot of different coffees... way more than one person could drink.

I know someone who gets his friends and family to buy gift certificates in BeanBay he then selects greens, roasts and delivers... they fund his habit and no money changes hands.

He gets them to buy $10 certificates and then roasts them 500g. Gives a small profit margin to cover costs and they get high quality roasts cheap

[readeral]

Gift certificate is a genius idea. Didn't think of that.

[MFurre]

Ah! This is great.

I was thinking more in the sense of buying beans, roasting and then selling 250 grams for around $10, so it would be a $5 "profit" that would go towards paying off the investment of the machine, and then after that maybe just give the profit away for charity or something. Any thoughts?

Also, I already have an ABN in terms of some other freelance work that I do as a Sole Trade. Would I be able to possibly put everything under that ? What I do as a frelancer doesn't relate to coffee in any way though..

[WantRancilio10]

Nice income tax deduction
Buy from CS and there's already a FairCrack donation

[GrahamK]

Just keep in mind as soon as you start charging, you are going to need to take at least the costs of valve bags & possibly a heat sealer into account. So your 50% expectations profit may diminish a bit.

A good expectation may be to try get it to cover the costs of your own coffee & experimenting.

You will also need to ensure there are no foreign objects that could ruin a friend or customers grinder via either careful manual checking or some type of de-stoner.

Not trying to put you off, but charging changes the dynamics, as many of us have discovered.

GrahamK

[MFurre]

Ah! True..
Things become a bit more complicated..

[readeral]

Just like WantRancilio wondered whether you had the 'small business tax deduction' angle in mind.. I'd considered a similar thing. Not worth it IMO until you're at volumes that make owning a Behmor less suitable - that's my advice if it's something you're thinking.

Re: ABNs - as long as you are undertaking both activities as a Sole Trader (or both activities within the same business structure) you'll be able to do that. (See here: Frequently asked questions | ABN Lookup)

Just cause you need to think about destoning and bags and heat sealers doesn't make it too much more complicated - both those are solvable with a bigger up front investment. Mostly just a $$ issue. In my mind, the thing that will make it more complicated is ensuring you're within your legal obligations as a supplier of consumable goods, and also have a consistent product that is worth buying. Again - probably not worth the effort at lower volumes.

My advice is to start as a 'hobby' first - see how you go with the higher volumes, invite feedback from friends, then think about the ABN and further investments. All power to you if you're keen to get right into roasting!

[MFurre]

Yeah, I think I have to scale it down a bit at first. #1 thing is that I want to be able to roast larger amounts than what I can with the Popper and get a more consistent roast. And then, if that would be something my friends would like to get from me rather than buying roasted beans from somewhere else, then that would be a bonus.

Thank you for the reply!