Non-coffee Drinks that Boost Café Sales
by Melandri Taljaard, Beverage Consultant at VDP Distributors.
Coffee offers high gross margins (80-90% for black coffee, 65-75% for milk drinks), but net profit margins for cafes are much lower, typically 4-8%, though successful ones can reach 10-15% after covering all costs like labor, rent, and utilities. The most coffee sales in a single day are typically driven by peak hours in the morning and during the lunchtime rush. The absolute peak hour can vary by location, but generally falls between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Adding non-coffee drinks could fill the time gaps or have one client buying multiple times in the day. Cafes are known for their coffee and adding non- coffee drinks won’t take away from your brand it will only broaden you client base. Individual non-coffee drinks often have 70-90% gross margin, you can increase your cafés margins by 10-20% just by adding a few non-coffee drinks like coolers, lemonades and ice teas.
These drinks have higher margin because syrups, ice and water are much more inexpensive than coffee beans and milk. The numbers speak for itself and if that isn’t enough to convince you then think about your brand exposure. Only focusing on one client group excludes non-coffee drinkers, kids and teens with parent who would rather buy everything at one café than having to go from one place to the next and customers looking for a non-coffee beverage on a hot summer day in the afternoon. Not catering in some small why for these clients could put the brand at risk as people feel excluded.
You might be thinking, well I have soft drinks and juices for non-coffee drinkers, the problem with this is that the margin on those drinks is very small compared to you cooler and lemonades and we are all about having profitable drinks on your menu to help grow your business.
These easy, affordable drinks could be the next best thing on your menu, not only keeping your customers happy but also supporting you. Lemonades can be easy build up drinks like the mint lemonade, strawberry passionfruit lemonade or the passion blue lemonade, or they can be blended to make frozen lemonades. Lemonades are easy to make and visually appealing it is a great refreshing alternative.
Frozen Coolers are on the rise and having these on your menu looks amazing in the summer time…think of this as an elevated slushy. A smoothly blended fruity ice drink that doesn’t separate…I know right, exactly what you needed.
These high margin drinks will keep people coming back for more as the Da Vinci Cooler Base powder creates a stable drink enhancing the flavour and keeping customers happy and satisfied with a great quality drink. Adding coolers like the sunrise granita and apple granita to your menu will only add value in the long run. We know you sell coffee but having a buildup ice tea drink on the menu can be much more profitable than the store-bought ice teas. Ice tea drinks that do well all-round are lemon mint ice tea and strawberry peach tea fizz. It will make a tremendous difference by only adding a few of these non-coffee drinks to your menu, not only on your sales side of the business, but a wider client base will only make way for more growth.