A café that runs out of beans mid-morning has a problem no apology fixes. A café sitting on four months of stock has a different problem: coffee that has drifted well past its best before it ever reaches the hopper. Getting the rhythm right sits between those two failures, and it depends far more on your own numbers than on a rule handed down by the industry.
Here is how to turn those numbers into an ordering schedule that suits your bar.
The short answer: once a week to once a fortnight
Weekly ordering works well for many cafés, and most do best reordering wholesale coffee every one to two weeks. That keeps beans fresh and avoids both stockouts and excess inventory. The right frequency is driven by sales volume, storage space, package size and supplier lead time.
That points to a working range of roughly weekly to fortnightly, with the exact spot inside that range decided by your café rather than by a universal standard.
| Factor | What it does to your cadence |
|---|---|
| Sales volume | Higher volume empties bags faster, supporting larger or more frequent orders |
| Storage space | Tight storage pushes you towards smaller, more frequent deliveries |
| Package size | Larger packs need faster turnover to stay inside the peak window |
| Supplier lead time | Longer waits mean more buffer stock and an earlier reorder point |
Why freshness sets the outer limit
Roasted whole beans are not a product that improves with time on the shelf. They rest, they peak, then they fade. The exact windows vary with the bean, roast level and storage, but the shape of the curve is consistent.
- Most coffees need to rest for roughly 5 to 14 days after roasting before they taste their best.
- Whole beans are generally at their peak from about a week or two after roasting through to around four weeks.
- Beans are usually still good out to about six weeks.
- After that the coffee fades, and much of the quality has gone by six to eight weeks post-roast.
Put together, that means a rest of about a week before the coffee hits its stride, a peak through the first few weeks, and a gradual decline after that. What matters for ordering is the general direction: the longer a bag sits, the less of your stock is served at its best.
That is why a delivery cadence measured in weeks rather than months makes sense. If a bag is worked through in a fortnight, most of it is poured inside the peak. If it takes three months, the last third is being served after the flavour has gone.
Four factors that decide your cadence
Sales volume and trading pattern
A high-volume café with a hard morning rush will empty a bag far faster than a quieter suburban spot with a steady trickle of takeaway trade. Volume, not floor space, is what turns a delivery into cups. Look at your usage across a normal week, then across a busy one. The gap between them tells you how much buffer you actually need.
Storage space and package size
Ordering frequency and storage are tied together. If your back room only holds a couple of weeks of stock, frequent small deliveries are the practical option, even if you would rather place fewer, larger orders. If you buy in bigger pack sizes to reduce handling, you need the shelf space and the turnover to match, or the coffee will age before it is opened.
Supplier lead time
Lead time directly affects how often you need to order. You need enough stock on hand to cover the wait between placing an order and receiving it, plus a margin for the days when a delivery slips. Ask your roaster what their typical turnaround looks like and build your reorder point around that, not around the morning you notice the shelf is bare.
Ordering method and admin load
Cafés place orders by phone, email, online or through automatic recurring orders, and there is no single best channel. Choose the method you will genuinely keep up with, because a cadence you forget to action is worse than a slightly less efficient one you never miss.
Work out your quantity before you lock in a frequency
Frequency and order size are the same decision viewed from two ends. Before choosing between weekly and fortnightly, measure what you actually use.
- Track your bean usage over a couple of ordinary weeks, including decaf and any single origin you run alongside the house blend.
- Note your busiest trading days and any seasonal shifts that repeat each year.
- Divide total usage by the number of weeks tracked to get an average weekly figure.
- Multiply that figure by your intended ordering interval, then add a small buffer for a busy weekend or a late delivery.
- Compare the result against your storage capacity and the pack sizes your supplier offers.
Weekly usage varies too much between ccafés for a typical figure to be useful, so it would be misleading to offer one. Your own sales data is the only reliable starting point, and it beats any benchmark someone quotes at you over the counter.
Signs your ordering rhythm needs adjusting
Most cafés find the right cadence by noticing when the current one fails. A few signals worth watching:
- Bags arrive with roast dates well in the past, or sit unopened long enough to miss the peak entirely.
- You run out on the days you can least afford it, which usually means the reorder point is set too late relative to lead time.
- Storage is crammed to the point where bags get crushed or rotated carelessly.
- You place emergency top-up orders between scheduled deliveries, suggesting the scheduled quantity is too low.
- Stock is thrown away or discounted because it never made it into the hopper in time.
Any one of these is a prompt to recalculate rather than to panic. Adjust in small steps, change one variable at a time, and give the new rhythm a few cycles before judging it.
Setting up a standing arrangement with your roaster
A recurring order removes most of the guesswork from this. If your roaster knows your weekly or fortnightly quantity and your delivery window, they can plan roast dates around it, which means fresher coffee landing on your bench rather than stock pulled from the back of a shelf.
LygonCoffee is an Adelaide-based specialty roaster. We supply cafés with wholesale beans and custom blends, and offer private label and contract roasting, while Brand Partners is our stockist program for independent coffee vans and carts. Our range includes the OmniSoul blend, single origins and a decaf. A straight conversation about your usage, your storage and your preferred delivery window is the fastest way to settle on a cadence that keeps hoppers full without leaving coffee ageing in the corner.
Ready to set up a regular order? Talk to us about wholesale coffee beans and custom blends for your café.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a café order coffee beans?
Most cafés land somewhere between weekly and every two weeks. Where you sit in that range depends on your sales volume, storage space, pack sizes and supplier delivery time.
Is weekly or fortnightly ordering better for freshness?
Weekly deliveries mean less time between roast and use, so more of each bag is poured inside the peak flavour window. Fortnightly ordering can work just as well if your volume is moderate and storage is limited. Freshness depends on the gap between roast date and use, not on the calendar slot itself.
How long after roasting are beans at their best?
Allow a rest of roughly a week or two, then expect peak flavour through the first several weeks, followed by a gradual fade. The exact window varies with the bean, roast level and storage.
Should a café use more than one bean supplier?
It depends on your menu. Consider what your café needs, how much admin you can manage, and whether one roaster covers your blend, decaf and any rotating single origin.
Does pack size affect how often I should order?
Yes, because pack size and storage capacity together limit how much you can sensibly hold. Larger packs reduce handling but demand faster turnover and more shelf space. Smaller packs suit tighter storage and lower volume. Match the pack to the rate at which you actually empty it, and the ordering interval tends to sort itself out.
