I will not pay £1.70 for a cup of coffee! How much are you willing to pay?
@destry (2572)
Kirkwall, Scotland
October 8, 2015 4:43am CST
One of the alarming things that I noticed whilst taking my wife to college last week was the price that the canteen were charging for a cuppa coffee. The canteen had been taken over by Costa Coffee - no doubt this is the colleges way of outsourcing the premises to the highest tender in order to cover the overheads. With an increasing demand on maintain a positive cash flow and decreasing governmental funding, this in itself is not a shocking move. It makes financial sense.
However, the issue that I have with this type of coffee shop establishment is the over inflated prices that they charge for an under rated up of coffee. We are talking £1.70 for a regular sized black coffee in a disposable cup. The coffee shop establishment does not even have to consider overheads for washing ceramic mugs - and I am not even expecting china cups!
Costa coffee is part of the Whitbread chain, who also own Premier Inn, Brewers Fayer and Beefeater Grill, which make up a fair proportion of the retail industry within the UK. In the year leading up to 27/02/14 the Whitbread group and a pre tax profit of £347.0m. No wonder their profits are so high when they charge £1.70 for a cup of coffee.
However, we have to be fair to Costa coffee (other highly priced coffee shop chains are available), not all of that £1.70 is pure profit, there are overheads, staff wages and premise rental and VAT to be factored into the overall cost of the coffee. Unfortunately, I do not have recent examples of these figures at hand, and short of submitting a FOI request, I am sure that Costa not be too forthcoming with the data.
In a 2013 report, the Daily Mail (not that I read, nor have strong confidence in any statistics published by the Daily Mail) states that an average coffee cup from Costa contains approximately £0.08 worth of coffee beans and the disposable cup, lid and stirrer come to £0.16 - twice the price of the actual coffee. £0.37 of of the average (2013) price goes to the Government in VAT.
My personal view is that I am not willing to pay twice the price more for a disposable cup than the actual coffee inside of it. £1.70 is a very steep price for a coffee, especially when the captive audience is students who are after a caffeine fix.
On a totally unrelated side note, a pint in the near by pub, the Coopers Arms is £1.70. It is a shame that Whitbread stopped brewing beer in 2000!
1 person likes this
3 responses
@destry (2572)
• Kirkwall, Scotland
18 Oct 15
Really? That much? It beats me who pays that much - as a jar of instant can be picked up for 49p!
@firef1y (78)
•
18 Oct 15
@destry yep. tbh I don't very often go in coffee shops, only when I need somewhere quiet and warm to nurse. As for the price of a pint, blimey, even in a cheap chain pub £2.50 a pint would be considered a special offer. The joys of living close-ish to London while still being out in the country I guess
1 person likes this
@destry (2572)
• Kirkwall, Scotland
18 Oct 15
@firef1y that much for a pint? Blimey. I have worked in two breweries and know the numbers on what a pint costs to produce. We are talking 12 pints for 10p to manufacture - the costs shoots up when you add the tax and duty, and the retailers profit margins.
Hence to say, I brew my own!
@Inlemay (17713)
• South Africa
8 Oct 15
When in Europe we paid noting less that $1.5 for an American coffee but at starbucks the coffee was well over $3 - so it seems coffee prices are on the rise. In SA if you have a take-away, on the run coffee it will cost you the equivalent of £1,2, if you are seated in a coffee house, it will cost you £1,5 as well - dollar or pound, or rand, it seems we are all paying dearly for a brown brew of caffeine
