Alternative milk costs drive up the prices of your café coffee
If you like an alternative milk product in your coffee and were wondering why, your coffee costs so much more than the regular variety, Dan Dick, director of Melbourne-based Born and Raised Coffee has the answer.
Dick shared a Tik Tok post where he explained that buying non-dairy milks cost “almost double” for cafes – a cost that is passed on to customers.
Essentially milks such as soy and oat are more expensive to buy.
Dick also said having to steam each type of milk separately “slows down service”.
“One of my biggest issues with the rising popularity of alt milks isn’t the additional cost that we surcharge for,” Dick said on the social media platform.
“It’s the complication to workflow that having up to six different milks introduces to your working environment.
“It slows down service.”
The higher cost of the product is just another added cost to struggling cafes, who must navigate a recent 3.75 per cent rise in staff wages.
“It’s just not feasible for us to absorb that significant cost to our wages,” he said.
Dick posited a couple of solutions
“If I were to offer you one of those alternative milks free of surcharge, so not obviously discounted beyond normal coffee, but without the additional charge,” he began.
“If you were an almond drinker, would you drink soy if it was zero surcharge? Or, you know, oat?”
He asked if keeping the cost of black coffee down but raising alternative coffees would help.
“I’m really curious about, as consumers, what are the sort of things that are going to help this burden on you that are also going to go hand-in-hand with helping me control my bottom line,” Dick said.
“But also, perhaps affect my workflow in a way that is more conducive to getting out coffees faster and better.”
The humble coffee has become a barometer for Australia’s cost-of-living crunch, but with no near-term rate relief in sight and inflation taking its time to come down, it may be some time before we see cheaper coffees.
Earlier this year Josh Rivers who owns four South Australian venues claimed coffees should be $8 or $8.50 for a small instead of the perceived value of $4 to $5.50.
Jonathan Jackson, 9th September 2024
