Easy Coffee Franchise – What's Involved?
Alice Tuffery, writer
easyCoffee is a chain of coffee shops that focus on affordability. Offering low prices across the menu, this chain prides itself on offering consumers a simple and straightforward experience. Customers who are ‘on the go’ can rely on a range of delicious food and drinks choices that don’t cost the earth.
The coffee shop chain boasts a menu of savoury and sweet options, including sandwiches, wraps, salads, crisps, muffins and pastries. The drinks menu is where this coffee business really comes into its own, however. Alongside its signature selection of coffees that are made with Fairtrade, naturally processed Arabica and Robusta coffee beans, easyCoffee sells smoothies, milkshakes and six different types of hot chocolate, including coconut hot chocolate, raspberry hot chocolate and popcorn syrup hot chocolate. This reflects the brand’s mission; to be simple, fun and innovative.
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The brand also champions value for money. As a result, customers can purchase a regular americano for just £1.50, while milk-based drinks start at £1.80. The business also operates a number of discounts and deals; for example, customers can buy any pastry for £1 when they buy any hot drink, any cake for £2 when they buy any hot drink, and any toastie for just £3 when they buy any hot drink.
However, easyCoffee has a number of priorities, and also works hard to care properly for its workforce, engage with the local community and reduce its impact on the environment by increasing its sustainability. One measure it has taken to achieve the latter is forming a partnership with bio-bean. This is the first clean technology business to recycle used coffee grounds on an industrial scale. easyCoffee sends its used coffee grounds to bio-bean so that it can be transformed into high-quality biofuel. Given that Brits drink more than 70 million cups of coffee every day, generating 500,000 tonnes of waste coffee grounds, this is one small step from easyCoffee that will positively impact its carbon footprint.
Luckily, easyCoffee is not just a coffee business, but a coffee franchise too. That means that you can join the fun and help sell delicious food and beverages to customers looking for an affordable, no-nonsense retail experience. Here, we’ll take a closer look at the history of the brand and the franchising opportunities currently on offer.
The easyCoffee Brand
easyCoffee is a relatively young brand, launched in 2016. It is one of a family of brands, alongside easyJet, easyHotel, easyGym and easyCar, and its visual brand identity indicates this. Its founder, Nathan Lowry, who is now the business’ CEO, worked to introduce easyCoffee’s first concept store in London just three years ago. Here, it found a pool of loyal customers who loved the delicious food and low prices offered by the brand. It rapidly expanded to open seven more shops in locations such as Hastings, Sutton, Dartford, Sutton, Burnley and Blackburn.
easyCoffee’s eight core brand values illustrate its unique attitude to business:
- great value
- taking on the big boys
- for the many not the few
- relentless innovation
- keep it simple
- entrepreneurial
- making a difference in people's lives
- honest, open, caring and fun
In short, this coffee franchise aims to give customers what they want by prioritising a pragmatic approach and operating a straightforward business model. Founded in London, this is truly a coffee shop for the everyman.
easyCoffee Franchise
This food franchise has big plans for the coming years. It aims to increase the total number of easyCoffee shops, ‘Retail Pod’s, ‘Drive Thru’s and kiosks to over 200 within three years. These will be a mixture of company-owned and franchisee-owned outlets, but seven multi-unit franchisees have already committed to launch 100 of the outlets over the three years. Therefore, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in the easyCoffee brand. If you think you’ve got what it takes to expand the business and serve delicious, steaming-hot coffee to the masses, you can register your interest on the easyCoffee website today to get the ball rolling.
However, this is not the only way to form a mutually beneficial business partnership with easy Coffee. As well as the numerous easyCoffee outlets across the UK, the business also operates a range of electronic easyCoffeeToGO machines, which dispense the brand’s range of coffees, teas and hot chocolates. There are almost 250 of these machines placed in public buildings across the UK, from shops, leisure centres and travel hubs to offices, universities and hospitals.
But easyCoffee has high hopes for this business model too, and aims to have over 2,000 CoffeeToGO machines in operation across Europe by 2020. They come in three different sizes, to suit every space and feature an electronic touch screen displaying bright and modern graphics. If you think this franchise opportunity would better suit you, head to the easyCoffee website and complete the CoffeeToGO machine form to start the process.
Easy Coffee Franchise Cost
Of course, the cost of starting a franchise with easyCoffee varies depending on whether you choose to initiate a coffeeToGO machine franchise or launch your own easyCoffee shop – or shops. If you’d like to place a coffeeToGO machine at your site, you’ll need to make a minimum investment of £15,000. This covers the coffee machine itself, as well as its ongoing maintenance, coin collection and stock replenishment.
On the other hand, to launch a full easyCoffee shop franchise, you’ll need funds of at least £150,000 to invest in your franchise. This should cover all the necessary equipment, signage and initial stock. While the coffeeToGO machine franchise model is a great investment for those with a limited budget, the easyCoffee store model represents a lucrative business opportunity for those with the capital, resources and ambition to run a profitable and ethical business.
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Alice Tuffery, writer