# Reselling coffee with alteration/addition



## Bette (Dec 16, 2020)

Hello, everyone.

Just a question about reselling coffee, please.

I often give coffee as gifts to friends and family, but I usually add a mix of spices to the coffee. I usually put the mix in small jars or tins of varying sizes.

I'm wondering whether this is a viable (and indeed legal) business idea by selling this way to the public.

Would suppliers allow or tolerate this? If I order whole beans in bulk and then add spices when grinding the beans and selling on to customers in sealed bags and jars?

Would this be something I would have to negotiate with suppliers or am I free to do as I wish with purchased coffee beans?

Thank you

Bette


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## urbanbumpkin (Jan 30, 2013)

I wouldn't buy it. It's a no from me I'm afraid.

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## Northern_Monkey (Sep 11, 2018)

@Bette - I'm sure you can do what you want with them as long as you don't name drop the actual company. If they find out though, they may no longer sell them to you.

Obviously you need to ensure you follow your local food regulations if you are selling commercially.

Personally I would never buy it, no way could I face trying to get the clove, cinnamon or cardamom taint out of my grinder! 😂

Edit: Saw you wanted to grind them and sell bagged. Definitely out as I never buy preground.


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## ZiggyMarley (Jan 9, 2019)

me neither sounds revolting.

OP could probably by wholesale roasted beans and repackage. I don't understand how buying at retail prices, grinding with added spices is a business proposition.....unless there is a huge markup.

In my mind the market for such a product is minute.


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## Wha burst the ba (Jun 20, 2020)

I've seen stalls at Christmas markets selling all these flavoured coffee's. Rum and raisin, whisky etc!!! They probably use a cheap generic bean and goodness knows how long they've sat after roasting. Seems to be legal!!!

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## GrahamS (Aug 27, 2015)

its the sort of thing that someone who knows i like coffee would buy me for christmas.


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## Rincewind (Aug 25, 2020)

I just want a coffee.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Bette said:


> Hello, everyone.
> 
> Just a question about reselling coffee, please.
> 
> ...


 It's legal. You need to ensure you abide by food hygiene regulations which isn't difficult. Somebody from the council will come and inspect your workspace which can be your home kitchen so long as you don't have pets. You'll need approved scales and a commercial grinder. It wouldn't take a lot of time to grind and repackage.

You'll want to buy white label coffee roasted at wholesale prices and likely will only bother using commodity grade. A supplier of the quality you'll be buying will likely not care what you do with the beans they sell you. You'll probably need to register as a business first and then deal with suppliers who will know you intend to resell the coffee. You might be able to get quotes and buy at least an initial batch of coffee without registering as a business. Coffee is 0 VAT rated but I don't know if you'll have to add VAT after adding your spices or not, so that's probably something to look into.

I don't know what markup is realistic or what you have in mind. How much will you earn per kilo sold? Presumably you'll be selling in small 250g jars or bags. What is a realistic price for this and how many will you need to sell to make a living? You might find you need a lot of storage space for the number of jars/tins you'll need to buy to avoid eating into your profits, and you might find you need to sell a particularly large quantity (e.g. supply supermarkets) in order to make it viable.

Personally I wouldn't go near the coffee with a barge pole but that's not really relevant to your questions.


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## Dartmoor Coffee (Feb 4, 2020)

Environmental health would be the biggest issue. Everything you add needs to be documented and if there is a complaint you must be able to show where and when the spice was bought. Interesting about approved scales since I've been having a word with trading standards and off the record I was informed there is no legal requirement for approved scales even though they insist on it. The issue comes if someone reports a query about the weight. You've got to prove that the weight is correct. I believed you could use a normal scales, but maybe have official trading weights to prove, but in the end I opted to get official trade approved scales.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

I use Kern trade scales, fast, robust and accurate.


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