Cafe Colonial · Investor deck 2026
Cafe Colonial is an American coffee company that sells green, unroasted coffee and roasted coffee through both wholesale and retail channels nationwide. The model captures value at two stages of the supply chain, in one brand, with one P&L.
$90.1B
US coffee revenue, 2025
Statista
66%
of US adults drink coffee daily
NCA 2025
~9.6%
specialty coffee CAGR to 2030
Grand View Research
40,000+
US coffee shop locations
World Coffee Portal
The full path, one P&L
Origin → Green lots → Roasted → Wholesale → Retail
Specialty share
46%
past-day, NCA 2025
01 · Executive summary
Cafe Colonial operates one integrated company across the two halves of coffee commerce that are almost always run separately: green and roasted, and wholesale and retail. We buy and import green coffee, sell commodity and specialty lots to roasters and foodservice, roast a growing share of our own volume, and sell the roasted result to coffee shops, restaurants, grocers and buyers direct.
Every pound that moves through us can earn margin twice: once as green goods, again as a roasted, branded product. The two loops fund and de-risk each other.
Commodity and specialty green lots sold to roasters on volume contracts and annual supply programs.
Home-roasting packs and small-lot origins sold direct, with subscription options.
Whole bean, ground and blends supplied to shops, restaurants, kiosks, cafeterias.
D2C e-commerce, subscriptions and branded shelf lines in specialty grocery.
02 · The opportunity
The US coffee market generated an estimated $90.1 billion in revenue in 2025 (Statista), and industry trackers project low-to-mid single-digit annual growth through 2030. Within it, the specialty segment outpaces the broader market several times over: Grand View Research models US specialty coffee growing at a CAGR around 9.6% to roughly $80 billion by 2030. A company positioned on both the commodity-scale green side and the premium specialty roast side is built to ride every register of that growth.
66%
of US adults drink coffee every day
A 20-year high, up ~7 points since 2020. National Coffee Association, 2025.
~3
cups per day for daily drinkers
Coffee leads all purchased beverages. NCA 2025.
46%
drank specialty coffee in the past day
Passing traditional coffee (42%) for the first time. NCA 2025.
$8.6B
of green coffee the US imports a year
The largest green-coffee consumer market in the world.
Projection line modeled at a ~3.8% CAGR to ~$108.5B by 2030, in line with Research and Markets (3.7% to 2033) and IMARC (3.5% to 3.9% to 2034). Roasted coffee is the largest segment, about $77B in 2025.
Specialty segment
The premium lane grows fastest
$46.7B
US specialty sales, 2024
$80B
projected by 2030 · +72%
Grand View Research: ~9.6% CAGR, 2025 to 2030. Espresso-based drinks are the fastest format, up 17% among adults since 2020.
Green coffee, overlooked
The input market is growing, too
The global green coffee market is roughly $37 to $38 billion, growing ~4% to 5% a year. North America accounts for roughly 35% of global consumption, and the US lets about $8.6 billion of green coffee through its ports each year. Few of the buyers of that coffee are also brands.
03 · Go-to-market
Wholesale and retail are not two businesses in the plan, they are two engines on one brand. Wholesale drives volume, tenure and forecasting. Retail drives margin, brand equity and household penetration.
The wholesale engine
Contracted volume, case pricing, a named G&R roaster on the menu, and a green supply program when the buyer roasts their own.
The retail engine
D2C e-commerce, subscriptions and branded shelf lines, each one zero-footprint retail with full margin.
How it flows. A shop takes wholesale roasted this month, the tonnage turns into shelf-level branded retail bags next; a roaster takes green lots in April and orders roasted solids by September. Every channel feeds the others.
The anchor customer: 40,000+ US outlets, and independents re-brand to local roasts.
Foodservice coffee is an end-of-meal decision with strong repeat dynamics.
High-margin espresso pods in offices, transit, airports and malls.
The pantry lane where branded roast meets household penetration.
The green-coffee buyer class: ~2,000+ craft roasters across the US.
Web shop and subscriptions that deepen each wholesale relationship.
04 · Products
One buying desk, two product families, four grades of coffee, and a library of roast profiles that give every customer a SKU set, not a single bag.
Sold by the bag, by the container, by the contract
Commodity grade
Commercial C-commerce lots, fixed and float pricing, robust volume for roasters who push the every-day cup.
Specialty grade
Q-graded, at least 80+ scores, traceable to origin and to producer signature, bagged and sealed for craft roasters.
Sourcing model
Multi-origin contracting: Central & South America, East & West Africa as the core books; fixed-price positions plus shadow flex for consistency.
Whole bean, ground, and blends, in named roast profiles
Whole bean & ground
A core line of single-origins and medium-plus blends, plus a cafés-grade line tuned for espresso bars and restaurant service.
Blends, built for the menu
Signature espresso, filter and decaf (EA and Swiss-water-style) blends: development profiles written to customer equipment first.
Roasting notes
Small-batch drum roasting, roast-to-order windows, RFID lot tracing, and a cupping lab on the second fastest drum.
2 grade ladders
commodity to specialty, one grade ladder per product line
6+ formats
green bags, whole bean, ground, pods, k-pods, cold-brew-ready
Roast-to-order
freshness shelf as the customer promise
05 · Revenue model
Coffee is one of retail's most habitual purchases. The model is built to convert habit into contracts, and contracts into a growing share of each customer's coffee spend.
Target mix
70%
wholesale
Indicative model parameters shown in the mix chart and margin lines are plan assumptions, not audited figures; they are refreshed at each model cadence.
06 · Market projections
Management targets (illustrative) assume the dual model compounds: wholesale contracts renew, retail households grow, and green trade scales with the roaster customer base. Revenue is modeled at a ~53% blended CAGR from Y1 to Y5.
US$ millions, wholesale + retail
Y1 launch: origin contracts, first wholesale accounts, D2C live by mid-year. Y5: 3 core channels at scale across the US, with about 400 active recurring accounts.
Growth multipliers
1 · Contract renewal: wholesale agreements create 18-36 month visibility.
2 · Branded retail margin: every wholesale pound that turns branded lifts blended margin ~8-12 points.
3 · Green trade scale: container-lot economics improve as origin positions consolidate.
Plan CAGR
53%
blended 5-year revenue, base case. All plan figures are illustrative management targets.
Illustrative share of plan revenue, year 5
Northeast
NYC · Boston · DC · Philly
Coffee shops, retail, grocery anchors
Southeast
ATL · Nashville · Miami
Restaurants, hotel & office amenity
Midwest
Chicago · Minneapolis · Detroit
Supermarkets and cafeterias
Southwest
Dallas · Houston · Phoenix
Foodservice and retail kiosks
West / PNW
LA · SF · Seattle · Portland
Specialty roasters and D2C
Service map: wholesale logistics via regional depots; retail and D2C ship nationally from roastery inventory. Regional figures are target allocations, not commitments.
07 · Competitive landscape
The US market splits into commodity importers, regional craft roasters, restaurant brands and big retail chains. Each owns one lane. Cafe Colonial treats green-plus-roasted, wholesale-plus-retail as one integrated order book.
| Capability | Commodity importers | Regional roasters | National chains | Cafe Colonial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green coffee supply | Core business | Buy as input | Third-party | Owned, grade ladder |
| Roasted brand line | Not offered | Core business | Private label | Owned profiles |
| Wholesale channel | Contract | Local reach | Mass scale | Dual-model contracts |
| Retail & D2C | Limited | Café-anchored | Strong | Brand + subscription |
| Subscriptions / green clubs | Rare | Rare | Some | Both formats |
Dual-margin structure
Green and roasted each earn a margin; the two loops offset commodity cycles.
Channel integration
Wholesale accounts and retail customers share one forecast, one inventory, one brand.
Sourcing control
Contract positions mean visible green costs feed stable roasted pricing.
Recurring base
Contracts plus subscriptions cap downside and shorten the sales cycle over time.
08 · Team & operations
The plan is built to be run by a small senior team early: a founder who owns sourcing and the customer roadmap, a head roaster on the first drum, and a sales lead opening the first region.
About the company & the founderEmilio
Founder & Managing Partner
Emilio started Cafe Colonial around a working observation: the coffee trade earns its most consistent margins on the green side, its most premium ones on the roasted side, and almost no one holds both in one P&L. He set the company up to exploit exactly that seam, and now owns sourcing policy, roast profiles and the customer roadmap day to day.
Year 1 hires
· Head Roaster
· East & Southeast Sales Lead
· Operations & logistics manager
Year 2-3 hires
· Head of Sourcing (green trade)
· Grocery channel director
· Finance & planning
Operations plan
Small-batch drum roastery (capacity grows with demand), a cupping lab on the same floor, bonded green storage for container lots, and a single integrated order book across wholesale, green trade and D2C from day one.
09 · Financial outlook
Five-year management targets: revenue to $8.2M, gross margin to the high 40s, and EBITDA turning positive during Year 3 as the wholesale book reaches critical mass. Full year-by-year model on request.
| Plan year | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale roasted share | 60% | 56% | 54% | 52% | 50% |
| Wholesale green share | 10% | 12% | 15% | 18% | 20% |
| Grocery & retail share | 18% | 19% | 19% | 20% | 20% |
| D2C & subscriptions share | 12% | 13% | 12% | 10% | 10% |
| Gross margin | 42% | 44% | 46% | 46% | 47% |
| EBITDA margin | -24% | -4% | +8% | +12% | +16% |
| Headcount (FTE) | 4 | 8 | 14 | 20 | 28 |
47%
target gross margin by year 5
Green lots 28-38%; roasted lines 55%+; blended across the P&L.
+16%
EBITDA margin at year 5
Drag from roastery and logistics fixed cost falls as volume rises.
28
headcount at year 5
Intense ratio of people to revenue, kept lean by one platform.
Capital allocation, illustrative
20%
Roastery & quality lab
25%
Origin contracts & green inventory
35%
Go-to-market & sales team
20%
Working capital & systems
Illustrative management targets for planning and diligence. Not a forecast of results; the full model, assumptions and sensitivities are available on request.
10 · Profitability
Profitability on the retail side is built cup by cup: at a $5.60 cup price and a $0.154 coffee cost per cup, every cup carries $5.45 of gross profit. One brewing unit at current capacity pours 109,200 cups a year, a $611,520 Year 0 revenue base, and this business case compounds that base by +30% in Year 1 and +40% in each of the next three years, to a $2,121,485 Year 4 gross profit.
Year 0 is current capacity: 109,200 cups at $5.60, coffee cost $16,800. Growth stacks +30% in Year 1, then +40% in each of Years 2, 3 and 4, with the $0.154-per-cup coffee input held constant. This is the retail brewing-unit case beneath the company financial outlook.
Profitability at a glance
One cup, one unit, four years
$5.45
gross profit per cup at $5.60 retail and a $0.154 coffee input
97%
of the cup price remains after the coffee input
109,200
cups per year at current capacity: 300 per day, 2,100 per week
3.6×
Year 0 to Year 4 gross profit: $594,720 to $2,121,485
65 cups / lb
coffee cost per cup: $0.154
20 cups / hour
15 hours / day · 7 days / week
300 cups / day
2,100 / week · 109,200 / year
$611,520
coffee cost: $16,800
Coffee cost per cup is the $10.00-per-pound green cost divided across 65 cups of yield. Throughput assumes 20 cups per hour over a 15-hour, 7-day operating week. All figures are the business case assumptions for this section, refreshed at each model cadence.
| Year | Gross revenue | Coffee cost | Gross profit | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 0 | $611,520 | $16,800 | $594,720 | Baseline |
| Year 1 | $794,976 | $21,840 | $773,136 | +30% |
| Year 2 | $1,112,966 | $30,576 | $1,082,390 | +40% |
| Year 3 | $1,558,153 | $42,806 | $1,515,347 | +40% |
| Year 4 | $2,181,414 | $59,929 | $2,121,485 | +40% |
Coffee cost scales with cup volume at $0.154 per cup; Year 0 cost is $16,800. Gross profit is revenue less coffee cost, so the year-by-year figures above are exact derivations of the supplied model, not estimates. All figures are plan assumptions for this business case.
Next step
We keep a working P&L, a sourcing book and a channel plan that move together. Send a note through this form to request the full deck, the financial model or a coffee: the answer time is measured in hours, not weeks.
Planning a national launch, phase one: US wholesale hub you name it
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