How to track green coffee inventory in a roastery
Green coffee is usually the largest cost a roastery holds, and it is easy to lose sight of. Sacks arrive in mixed lots, move between a warehouse and the roaster, and lose weight along the way. A count that only lives in someone's head, or in a spreadsheet one person updates, drifts away from what is on the racks.
Track sacks, not just lot totals
A lot total tells you how much of a coffee you bought. It does not tell you where it is or how much is left in each sack. Give every sack its own code when it arrives and record its weight, location and rack.
With sack-level records, a half-used sack is visible, two sacks of the same coffee in different places stay separate, and a stock count becomes a walk along the racks with a list.
Receive against a purchase order
Record what you ordered from the importer before it arrives. When the delivery lands, receive the sacks against that order. Differences between ordered and received weight show up on the day, while they can still be raised with the supplier.
Record every move between locations
If you store green coffee away from the roaster, a transfer is a real event. Record what left, and record the weight that arrived on the other side. The gap between the two is information, not noise.
Draw stock down from real roast batches
Stock should go down because coffee was roasted, not because someone estimated usage at the end of the week. Log each roast batch against the green coffee it used, with the green weight that went into the roaster.
- Green weight in, from a named coffee and sack.
- Roasted weight out, so weight loss is known for every batch.
- The date and who roasted it.
Count, compare and look at the gaps
Even with good records, count the racks regularly and compare the count with the system. A gap that keeps appearing on one coffee or one location usually points to a step that is not being recorded.
A spreadsheet can hold all of this for a small roastery. It starts to fail when several people update it, when sacks move between sites, or when nobody is sure which tab is current.
How Daily Brew Ops does it
Ops keeps green coffee as physical sacks. Each sack has its own code, weight, location, rack label and movement history. Sacks are received against green purchase orders, transfers record the arrival weight on the far side, and roast batches are logged against the green coffee they used.
If you profile roasts in Cropster, synced green lots and roast profiles can be viewed in Ops alongside your stock and roast records. A synced Cropster record does not replace receiving sacks in Ops.
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