They Launched A Kopi Merchandising Machine—1 Yr In, It’s Expanded To 70 Areas

Kopi is popping into costlier, so that they turned to merchandising machines to make it additional accessible

Singapore has a rich and saturated espresso scene, from heritage producers like Killiney to native aesthetic cafes. Nonetheless for Leow Jun Heng and Loh Jian Yuan, the good ol’ typical cup of kopi is their go-to caffeine restore.

The duo first met in early 2024 through widespread associates and bonded over their love for the beverage, nevertheless shortly received right here to grasp how the COVID-19 pandemic had elevated the working costs of corporations, along with Singapore’s kopitiams, making an excellent cup of kopi a lot much less accessible.

“I consider getting a relentless cup of kopi is getting extra sturdy. The pandemic accelerated it, with some areas stopping operations,” lamented Jun Heng.

Determined to make it additional accessible, the duo decided to find merchandising machines as a solution. Drawing on Jun Heng’s three years of experience inside the merchandising machine space and Jian Yuan’s self-taught barista experience, they launched Kopi Near Me, a kopi merchandising machine enterprise that has expanded to 70 areas all through the island inside just one yr.

Vulcan Submit sat down with the duo to learn how they differ from totally different merchandising machine producers and what their recipe for achievement is.

Brewing kopi consistently

Presently, Kopi Near Me’s merchandising machines serve three scorching drink selections: Kopi, Kopi-C, and Kopi-O. Purchasers might customise the drink to be thicker (gao), a lot much less sweet (siew dai), or with out sugar (kosong), which ranges from S$1.10 to S$1.70 counting on location.

Whereas espresso merchandising machines normally are usually not a model new thought, they normally present Western-style espresso selections. Jun Heng and Jian Yuan believed that having localised selections is additional appreciated by customers in Singapore, and follows the evolution of the merchandising machine commerce.

“It’s not the very commonplace prepackaged meals. Lately, merchandising machines are trying to push the bounds of what’s actually doable to be served,” outlined Jun Heng.

Nonetheless attaining the suitable model and consistency for his or her kopi proved troublesome. Completely totally different merchandising machine fashions have numerous calibrations and strategies, which made standardising recipes troublesome.

Due to this fact, to test their thought, the duo decided to purchase 10 utterly totally different merchandising machines, which required a S$200,000 upfront dedication.

“If it have been one thing a lot much less, then we’d not be giving it a very good likelihood to succeed, whether or not or not it’s a machine or location-specific topic,” shared Jian Yuan, together with that the switch made the operation asset-heavy.

Jun Heng and Jian Yuan moreover took the time to find out the “Golden Ratio” for his or her kopi, which I lastly found wasn’t in relation to specific numbers, nevertheless is used as a possibility to explain how the enterprise tunes its recipe fairly precisely, all the best way all the way down to the gram, to ensure consistency all through all their merchandising machines.

Small modifications may trigger espresso to model utterly totally different. Even in kopitiams, the place the an identical espresso powder and recipe are used, a slight variation in the best way it’s brewed can lead to noticeable variations in flavour. That’s why the duo pays such shut consideration to precision.

Rising their fleet with new choices

Jun Heng and Jian Yuan took roughly 9 months to good their recipe and provide the suitable beans from native suppliers. In the end, in Oct 2024, the duo effectively deployed their first merchandising machine at Sunshine Plaza.

Solely a yr after its launch, Kopi Near Me now operates over 37 machines all through the island.

Jun Heng outlined that selecting areas contains every approach and experimentation. Their core focus is on areas with frequent merchandising machine prospects, corresponding to office buildings and industrial zones, whereas their secondary aim accommodates additional space of curiosity audiences, like around the clock hospital staff and personnel at army bases.

This technique moreover helps offset downtime. “All through trip durations, areas which might be inside the office or industrial areas would do poorer, nevertheless our deployments, for example, at Tanah Merrah Ferry Terminal, the place individuals are touring to Batam or Bintan, then product sales there are doing terribly correctly.”

Up to now, take-up for Kopi Near Me’s selections has been promising. “Until proper now, I consider we’ve received crossed a few quarter of 1 million cups of espresso served,” shared Jun Heng, together with that the company has generated month-to-month revenues of roughly S$80,000 to S$90,000 over the earlier two months.

The enterprise has even obtained plenty of enquiries from establishments making an attempt to offer their espresso in office pantries—nevertheless the merchandising machines wanted to be tailor-made, as these corporations sometimes lack the realm or sources for the standard espresso setup.

This led to the launch of tabletop machines in Mar, which can be smaller, additional transportable variations of Kopi Near Me’s merchandising machines. The company has deployed 33 of them, bringing the entire number of merchandising machines it operates to 70.

Introducing these machines allowed the enterprise to increase the number of touchpoints and use situations, which has moreover helped diversify its earnings streams and opened the doorways to partnership alternate options with plenty of firms.

Amongst its companions are Japanese drugstore massive Welcia, Singaporean nicely being meals chain Grains & Co, and Chinese language language fast meals buffet mannequin Hundred Grains.

Holding points measured as a result of it grows

Whereas the pair has expressed ambitions to increase the entire number of touchpoints to 300 by 2026 and introduce additional native drinks corresponding to Teh and iced selections, they’re moreover adopting a additional pragmatic technique to ensure Kopi Near Me’s long-term sustainability.

Specialised merchandising machine corporations, corresponding to Kopi Near Me, require resilient and well-developed strategies to ensure a relentless present of parts, which is a additional sophisticated operation as compared with stocking canned drinks and packaged meals. As such, the company will give consideration to strengthening its workflows and workforce building to assist the enterprise’s progress.

With additional corporations rising with their very personal merchandising machines, purchaser expectations have been raised, and it has pushed them to introduce additional progressive however useful and up to date F&B selections. The barrier for the pair correct now may very well be getting the economics correct, nevertheless to Jun Heng and Jian Yuan, it’s an issue they’re itching to type out.

• Be taught additional about Kopi Near Me proper right here.
• Study additional tales we’ve written on Singaporean corporations proper right here.

Featured Image Credit score rating: Kopi Near Me