No Money Left Behind: Renting Time
In this series, I’m going to share the places where I most often see roasters leaving money on the table. There are all sorts of reasons for this. Sometimes, it’s due to having too much on your plate, not having team members who can handle the implementation, simply not knowing that you can make money in a particular area, not having products that the community needs, or not realizing that something you are doing for free could be charged for. No matter the reason, almost every roaster who engages me for help is leaving money on the table somewhere.
Renting Time
First up, we have renting time on your roaster. Often, roasters purchase roasting machines that significantly exceed their current or projected capacity and foreseeable needs. As a result, the roasting machine itself sits idle more often than not. We both know that if your roaster isn’t spinning, it’s depreciating and costing you money instead of making you money.
“But what if someone breaks my roaster? It’s the heartbeat of my business.”
I’m not advocating that you rent time to every person who walks in off the street with no training and no backup plan. You should have a process for training the folks who use your equipment, a contract stating that if they break something, they’re responsible for it, and a backup plan. Perhaps even a significant deposit in case of any issues. In addition to this, call up your pal who owns a roaster up the street and see if you can establish a mutual agreement to use each other's roaster if either of your roasters are out of commission. Regardless of whether you allow others to rent time on your roaster, you should have a backup plan for this scenario.
Additional Rental Opportunities
Beyond renting time on your roaster, you can also rent out the following to those renting time:
Green Coffee and Packaging Storage – They’ll need the space, rent it to them if you have it.
Cupping Lab – Charge a flat fee or per use fee to use your lab and/or your sample roaster.
Event Equipment – Smaller roasters hosting events will likely need equipment like carafes, tables, table cloths etc. —rent it to them!
On top of these items and that you can rent, you could also charge for:
Receiving Service – If you or your team receives their coffee, charge a fee for receiving it.
Packaging Materials – They’ll need packaging material and you likely have more buying power and can sell it to them for a price that is better than what they could pay for it.
Green Coffee – While the current price of green coffee might make your sourcing approach more conservative, purchasing 10–15% more than you need and offering it exclusively to the roasters renting time in your space could be beneficial to them and you.
Event Supplies – You buy napkins, sugar packets, and oat milk at scale—why not resell them to roasters renting time on your machine? They’ll need these supplies, so you can make a bit of margin while providing an amenity.
Maximizing Your Assets
The concept is simple: if you already have the space, equipment, and necessary permits and licenses—use them to their full capacity and profit from them. Now, I’m not so deluded as to think this will be the primary source of your monetary success as a coffee roaster, and it will require some administrative effort and structure, but it can be profitable and won’t hurt your bottom line if priced correctly.
Remember: if your roaster isn’t spinning, it’s losing you money. The same applies to your band sealer, nitro flusher, tape gun, and even that empty pallet space in your warehouse—you could be charging a roaster monthly rent to store it in your space.