Plan your green

Planning your green coffee purchases in advance with us can help you secure beans you love, that meet your price and quality requirements.

Why plan?

Regardless of your size and scale, there are many considerations that go into putting together a fresh, seasonal and varied coffee offering. Whether you are curating a rotating menu of seasonal coffees or offering a year-round espresso blend, it’s important to plan ahead for your coffee menu. With a little foresight, you can avoid missing out on coffees that you love or ensure yo don’t end up with too much of a particular line that you have to continue using well beyond its prime.

Drawing on our experience of managing and working with roasteries, we can work with you to plan out your green buying, which offers a number of advantages:

• Helps avoid gaps or compromises when putting together your coffee program.
• Aids in managing seasonality and green quality.
• Gives you more time to plan and manage the roll-out and marketing of your coffees.
• Allows you to taste coffees with different flavour profiles with little urgency.
• Provides an extra degree of certainty for shipping times.

How we help you plan

You can buy coffees from MCM in two ways: by selecting coffee at any time from our available in-warehouse stock (“spot” purchasing), or by providing us a buying brief ahead of the buying stage, during which we will select coffee specifically to meet that brief (“forward” purchasing, or “pre-committed”).

Most customers will buy through both purchasing models for different coffees, depending on the urgency of their need, the intended use of the coffee, the volume and/or price they require and the seasonality of the coffee. Our first step will be to work out which model suits you best for each of your purchases.

Spot Purchasing:
Spot coffees are purchased by MCM with no particular customer or purpose in mind. For these, we choose coffees that we love and that we think our customers will love. These coffees are added to Offer List and are available for anyone to purchase, either ahead of the coffees landing (from pre-shipment samples) or once they have arrived in Australia.

• Spot offerings are great for small or new roasters, who need a lot of flexibility in their coffee selection and volumes.
• Spot purchases carry less long-term commitment and financial risk for the roaster. Coffees that have landed are available for dispatch immediately after they have been cupped and assessed by our team to ensure our stringent quality standards are met (in the rare case when a coffee lands at a lower quality than expected, we will discount it significantly and sell it as a “Special Offer”).
• Spot coffees can be a great option for covering shortages in supply or delayed coffees throughout the year.
• Spot coffees may be slightly more expensive than pre-committed coffees, as both the producer and importer carry more financial risk in this model.
• There is no guarantee that a particular coffee will be available without pre-committing, and we are less likely to be able to offer exclusivity on a spot offering. Because of this, it can be challenging to offer a curated and consistent menu when relying solely on spot coffee.

Forward or Pre-Committed Purchasing:
Pre-committed lots are purchased for a specific customer who has given us a buying brief ahead of the purchasing stage or buying trip. The cup profile, price range and volume are agreed upon in advance and the customer commits to buying the coffee lot we select on their behalf. The customer may request coffee from a particular farm or washing station they have previously purchased from or may ask for a lot that we can offer to them exclusively.

• Forward buying is great for customers who need constancy and consistency in their coffee supply. This purchasing model guarantees the customer a particular volume of a coffee at an agreed upon quality level and price point.
• For our supply partners, receiving a thorough, accurate buying brief from MCM — informed by the requests of our customers — allows them to plan ahead for the season and source or process the coffees we require.
• This model requires careful planning and communication between MCM and the customer, to ensure the correct volumes and timing for the customer.
• Communicating your purchasing intentions ahead of a buying trip is the best way to secure exclusivity or first right to refusal on a particular coffee lot, or to ensure your access to small volume, high demand coffees (such as rare varieties and specially-prepared lots).
• Coffees contracted in advance by our customers may have a smaller margin added to them by MCM as there is less inherent risk to us as a business, both in terms of cashflow forecasting and in guaranteeing a buyer for the coffee.
• This model exposes the roaster to some risk as they are committed to taking the coffee (outside of severe quality concerns on landing, in which case we will find a manageable solution for all parties).
• Making a long-term commitment to buy coffee from the same producer or cooperative annually (regardless of slight quality and/or currency fluctuations) is the most effective way to build a meaningful and mutually beneficial relationship with our producing partners.

What you can expect

We can help you plan your entire green purchasing program or help you select coffees from a specific origin or for a particular purpose. During a typical planning session, we will:

• Make sure we understand your business values and objectives, and get a detailed brief of what you are looking for in terms of price point, quality, taste profile and volume.
• Cup with you, to calibrate and get a more intimate understanding of what you love and what you are looking for.
• Share details of upcoming coffees on the water, buying trips, arrival times, and opportunities to secure specific coffees.
• Create a detailed, personalised buying brief of your requirements or requests, which will be added to our overall brief as we head into the purchasing season for each of the origins we source from.
• Discuss options for warehousing, financing, draw down of coffee (this is determined upfront).

During the purchasing stage – whether that’s at origin, or in our cupping room here in Melbourne – we’ll select the best possible coffees that meet your price, volume and flavour profile requirements. We will then share pre-shipment samples for your evaluation and approval, as your order is not finalised until you have signed off on them. On arrival, the coffee will be formally evaluated again and approved by our QC team before it is released and becomes ready for delivery.

How to book a session

You can book a planning session any time! For forward planning, we will need to determine your requirements ahead of the purchasing stage. If we’ve passed it, we can still register your interest in a particular lot of that origin and follow up if any becomes available, or at the appropriate time for the following season.

Our offerings change throughout the year, depending on which coffees are in harvest, afloat, or in stock at our warehouse. With this in mind, we have a few tools to help you navigate these timelines:

• Our Offer List will inform you of current and upcoming spot offerings, tasting notes, availability and pricing.
• Our Coffee Calendar is a great tool that gives you an overview of each origin we work with, along with expected harvest and arrival times. This post also gives you a good idea of the flavour profiles to expect, and the average longevity of the coffees we offer.
• Our weekly newsletter and social media channels include information about our upcoming buying trips and activities, along with more specific updates on how things are going in the different coffee regions we work in.

We love getting to know our customers and their businesses better, which is why we place so much value on these meetings. Get in touch now to book a session with us!