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Colibri LX


tedk

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Does anyone have any experience with the Colibri LX (bean grinder) coffee machines. I have been approached by a customer to add coffee service. I know a re-furb place that has a Colibri LX available for about $1800.00

 

I'd like a formula to figure out the cost to make a cup of coffee. I'd also like some opinions on the machine.

 

The customer may want to supply free coffee to the employees. I was am thinking of supplying the product at a 40% mark-up and charging rental for the machine. I was thinking of $100.000 to $150.00 a month if I supply the product or $200.00 a month if they buy the supplies themselves.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. This would be my first go at coffee so I am stumbling around trying to find my way.

 

Thanks, Ted

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When you say "coffee service" that can mean a variety of solutions.  The first and easiest to implement is the pourover or plumbed in batch brewer that is the traditional machine.  It brews coffee one pot at a time and then the glass decanters sit on the warmers.  There are also large volume brewers that can fill a thermal carafe with two brew cycles.  This is the cheapest way for the operator to do coffee and gives you various sales avenues such as the coffee (with filters included), cups, stir stix, sugar, creamer and then, if you have a plumbed in brewer with a water spout, soluble flavored coffees, teas and hot chocolate. 

 

When you move beyond the traditional coffee service then you are either providing a full size vending coffee machine, which can be free vended, or you will be into the expensive single cup brewers.  Single cup is all the rage but is rarely inexpensive to implement due to the cost of the equipment such as the one you referenced for $1800.  These brewers usually brew bean to cup or from pods, with the cost of product the highest on the pod brewers.  These brewers usually have cream and sugar in them and sometimes chocolate as well.  The older Brio 250 machines also had a soluble coffee canister and the machine was coin operated and dispensed cups. 

 

With the simpler versions of these machines you will still need to provide the coffee or beans, cups, sugar, cream, etc., all of which is sold to the client. 

 

Personally, if you are doing the vending and they only want the coffee in the area that your machines are in and, if there is room, I would prefer a full size coffee machine due to it's ability to provide everything from above, even tea with the right model.  What you do in that case is set the machine on free vend and have the company reimburse you for every cup sold based on the meter reading.  You can even charge more or less for different products or even different cup sizes, which I should point out, the single cup brewers don't offer.  A good rebuilt full size machine should be available for $1200-1500. 

 

If you have to do the single cup machine, then by all means ask the customer to pay rental on the machine to ensure that your ROI is quick. 

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Does anyone have any experience with the Colibri LX (bean grinder) coffee machines. I have been approached by a customer to add coffee service. I know a re-furb place that has a Colibri LX available for about $1800.00

 

I'd like a formula to figure out the cost to make a cup of coffee. I'd also like some opinions on the machine.

 

The customer may want to supply free coffee to the employees. I was am thinking of supplying the product at a 40% mark-up and charging rental for the machine. I was thinking of $100.000 to $150.00 a month if I supply the product or $200.00 a month if they buy the supplies themselves.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. This would be my first go at coffee so I am stumbling around trying to find my way.

 

Thanks, Ted

Hi Ted, 

 

Who is the company that is selling the refurbished LX models... $1800 sound a bit steep to me but that would depend on what is involved in the refurb process... do their refurbished machines have boilers, brewers, seals ect... replaced?

 

What is the cost of a "new" LX model compared to a refurbished model?

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Thanks for the info AZ... interesting to compare the pricing to what we pay..

At that price I would probably recommend buying new depending on what is involved in the reburb process that the other company is offering...

I would also recommend the Krea over the Colibri for drink quality.. the new 4000 brewer is a lot better than the older 2000-3000 brewers...

The only disadvantage is that the Krea is not fully automatic... meaning there is no suger/cup dropper so you would need to place cups & sugar outside the machine... not such a bad thing because this would be 2 less things that can go wrong with the machine

If you need to have a fully automatic machine they also should sell the new karisma... This is the new replacement for the Colibri...

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Thanks AZ and Kiwi. 

- Kiwi, I'm not sure about boilers, brewers and seals as I did not know to ask. I have bought a number of vending machines from this company though and have had good success with the pieces they have done for me. I feel confident they will have serviced these items but now I know to  ask about them, I will.

 

-The prices from Beston will be in U.S. funds so their will be about a 12% surcharge for the exchange rate plus some import fees. I expect we would be looking at about 20% in total.

 

Ted

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Colibri seems like a very popular model.  Is there anything that is more popular?  Is there anything that would be considered the "dixie narco" of compact vending machines?

Hi Chris... the Saeco SG200 seems more popular machine in the US than the Colibri by what I can see but that might be because the biz-ops are pushing them... there don't seem to be as many Colibri's available on the secondhand market in the US as Saeco SG200's

 

In my opinion Necta make better coffee equipment but I maybe biased as I use their equipment... the Colibri is one of there older machines which has now been superseded by the Krea & Solista  

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Hi Chris... the Saeco SG200 seems more popular machine in the US than the Colibri by what I can see but that might be because the biz-ops are pushing them... there don't seem to be as many Colibri's available on the secondhand market in the US as Saeco SG200's

 

In my opinion Necta make better coffee equipment but I maybe biased as I use their equipment... the Colibri is one of there older machines which has now been superseded by the Krea & Solista  

 

Thanks for that information.

 

The hardest thing to figure out is how to make money using this type of equipment if there is no form of payment acceptance.  What do you do?

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These machines are commonly leased or rented to the accounts.  Whether rented/leased or not, you will be charging them for each vend based on meter readings or for all products used to stock the machine and any ancillary products needed such as cups, creamer, sugar, etc. 

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