Contract roasting is the least transparent part of this industry. Brands buying it rarely know what they are paying for. Roasteries selling it frequently price it badly. And the quotes that come back for what appears to be an identical job routinely differ by a factor of two, which tells you that at least one party does not understand their own costs.
It is worth unpacking, because contract roasting sits underneath a much larger share of the coffee sold in this region than most people realise.
What is actually in a quote
A contract roasting price contains at least five things, and the confusion comes from the fact that different operators bundle them differently.
The green. Whose is it, and at whose price? A brand supplying its own green is buying a service. A brand buying the roaster's green is buying green plus a service, at the roaster's buying terms — which may be considerably better than the brand could achieve alone, or may include a margin the brand never sees.
The roasting. Machine time, labour, energy, and a share of the fixed costs of the facility. This is the part everyone imagines they are buying and it is rarely the largest component.
Profile development. Developing a profile to a brand's specification is real work — multiple roasts, cupping, iteration. Some operators absorb it to win the account. Some charge for it. Either is legitimate; not knowing which you are getting is not.
Packaging and fulfilment. Bags, valves, labels, nitrogen flush, date coding, cartons. This is frequently a larger share of the per-kilo cost than the roasting itself, especially at small volumes and in retail formats. A brand comparing two quotes where one includes packaging and one does not is not comparing anything.
Minimum batch economics. Everything above assumes a batch size. A run that half-fills the drum costs nearly what a full one costs. This is the single biggest driver of quote variation and the one least often explained.
Two quotes differing by a factor of two are usually differing on the last two items, not on the roasting.
What a brand is really buying
Strip away the mechanics and a brand engaging a contract roaster is buying one of three things, and being clear which changes the negotiation entirely.
Capacity. You know exactly what you want, you have the profile, you just need drums and hands. Here you should be price-sensitive and specification-heavy, and you should be able to move between suppliers.
Capability. You need somebody who knows how to get what you want out of a coffee. You are buying judgement, and the cheapest quote is very unlikely to be the right one.
Somebody else's green book. The least acknowledged and often the most valuable. A roaster with volume has access, differentials and terms that a small brand cannot obtain alone. If that is what you are buying, the roasting fee is almost beside the point.
Most brands negotiate as though they are buying the first, while actually needing the second or third.
When owning a roaster is the wrong answer
There is a point at which every growing brand considers bringing roasting in-house. The reasoning is usually about control and margin, and both arguments are weaker than they appear.
On margin: the roasting fee you stop paying is replaced by a machine, a facility, extraction and fire suppression, approvals, a roaster's salary, and the fixed costs of a production operation that will run well below capacity for the first few years. Unless the volume genuinely fills a drum on a regular schedule, in-house roasting is a more expensive way to buy the same coffee — this is the two-days-a-week problem arriving by another route.
On control: control comes from specification, not from ownership. A well-written profile specification with agreed tolerances and a cupping protocol gives you more genuine control than owning equipment you do not yet have the volume or expertise to run well.
The honest version of the in-house decision is that it makes sense when volume is sufficient to run the equipment properly, when roasting is genuinely part of the brand's identity rather than a cost line, and when someone is being hired whose whole job it is. Below that threshold it is usually a commitment made for reasons that are more emotional than economic.
For roasteries with spare capacity
The other side of this. A roastery running well below capacity has a real asset in the hours it is not using, and contract work is the most direct way to monetise it.
Two cautions from having done it. Price it on full absorption, not marginal cost — quoting a price that only works because you are treating the fixed costs as already covered means the work is not actually profitable and you will discover this when it grows. And treat it as a real business line with its own specification and service standards, not as something squeezed between your own production, because a contract customer who is treated as filler leaves.
Done properly it changes the economics of a site substantially. Done as an afterthought it consumes capacity and produces very little.