Coffee Beans for the Office: A UK Buying Guide for Hybrid Teams

Hybrid working has settled into a pattern. According to the Office for National Statistics, 28% of working adults in Great Britain hybrid worked between January and March 2025. For full-time workers the figure was 34%. Most employers now expect those staff in on set days. The CIPD's 2025 survey of flexible and hybrid working found that 74% of organisations have hybrid working in place, and 65% require employees to be in the workplace a minimum number of days.

That changes how an office should buy coffee. Demand is no longer steady from Monday to Friday. It peaks on the days the team comes in and drops on the days it does not. This guide covers how to plan for that pattern, what office coffee costs per cup, and which beans suit the machines most offices use.

How Has Hybrid Working Changed Office Coffee Demand?

The pattern looks set to firm up rather than fade. The CIPD's analysis of employers' return-to-office plans found that 30% of large private sector employers with mandated office days plan to increase them within 12 months.

Most offices now have busy anchor days and quiet days. A kitchen that serves 30 people on a Tuesday might serve eight on a Friday. Ordering for an average week leaves the office short on the busy days. Ordering for the busy days every day leads to waste.

Coffee beans handle this pattern better than most office supplies. Sealed beans keep their flavour for weeks, so a slow week does not mean stock goes off. Fresh milk is the item that needs watching, because it has to be used within days. Ordering milk around the anchor days, and keeping beans on a steady monthly or six-weekly cycle, matches supply to this pattern.

Beans, Pods or Instant: What Suits an Office?

The right format depends on headcount, budget and how much time anyone wants to spend looking after a machine.

Whole Beans in a Bean-to-Cup Machine

A bean-to-cup machine grinds whole beans for each drink, and many make milk drinks at the touch of a button. The machine costs more up front than a kettle or a pod machine. The coffee itself costs far less per cup, and staff get a fresher drink because the beans are ground seconds before brewing. For offices with more than a handful of regular coffee drinkers, the lower cost per cup soon outweighs the higher machine cost.

Pod and Capsule Machines

Pod machines are simple and tidy, which suits very small offices. Each capsule is a single portion, so there is little to measure or clean. The trade-off is cost. Every cup carries the cost of its own packaging, so a pod habit becomes expensive as headcount grows. Used capsules also need their own recycling route.

Instant Coffee

Instant needs only a kettle, so it is the cheapest to set up. It suits kitchens with no space or budget for a machine, though the drink is a step down from freshly ground coffee.

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What Does Office Coffee Cost Per Cup?

Beans bought by the case keep the cost per cup low. A 6kg case of Caffé Prima Continental or Espresso Blend costs £64.99, which works out at £10.83 per kilo. Most bean-to-cup machines use 8 to 12g of beans per drink, depending on the strength setting, so a kilo makes roughly 85 to 125 cups. That puts the coffee in each cup at about 9p to 13p.

Decaf costs more to produce, because removing the caffeine adds an extra step before the beans are roasted. A 6kg case of Decaf Brazilian costs £94.99, or about 13p to 19p of coffee per cup. Milk, sugar and machine costs come on top of these figures in every format.

How Much Coffee Does an Office Need?

A simple calculation gives a good starting point. Take the number of coffee drinkers on a typical anchor day, multiply it by the number of in-office days, then by the average cups per person per day.

Take a team of 20 people who come in three days a week and drink two cups a day each. That team gets through about 120 cups a week. At around 10g of beans per cup, that is roughly 1.2kg of beans a week, so a 6kg case lasts about five weeks.

At that pace, freshness is easy to manage. A Caffé Prima 6kg case holds six individually sealed 1kg bags, so only the bag in use is open to the air. Each opened bag is finished in under a week. The unopened bags stay sealed in a cool, dry cupboard until they are needed. Smaller teams that use less than a kilo a week may be better off ordering single 1kg bags more often.

Which Beans Work Best in an Office Bean-to-Cup Machine?

Office machines run all day and serve people with very different tastes. The best office beans are forgiving, work well with milk and are easy on the grinder.

Espresso Blend

Espresso Blend is the most versatile bean in the range for milk drinks, so it suits offices where lattes and cappuccinos outsell black coffee. It is a medium roast with dark and milk chocolate notes. It is forgiving with extraction, so small changes in grind or dose do not turn the coffee bitter. Its lower oil content also means less grinder maintenance, which matters in a machine nobody in particular looks after.

Continental Blend

Continental Blend suits offices where people like a stronger, fuller cup. It is a medium-dark roast of Brazilian Arabica and Vietnamese Robusta, with dark cocoa and hazelnut notes and low acidity. It produces a rich crema and works well in every bean-to-cup machine. It costs the same as Espresso Blend.

A Decaf Option

A decaf option gives staff who avoid caffeine, or cut back later in the day, a reason to use the office kitchen. Caffé Prima makes two decaf beans, both sold in the same 1kg bags and 6kg cases as the rest of the range. Both suit bean-to-cup machines.

Decaf Brazilian is 100% Brazilian Arabica, decaffeinated with the CO2 process, which uses pressurised carbon dioxide to remove the caffeine. It has milk chocolate notes, a silky body and low acidity. It works well black or with milk, so it suits offices where people want a decaf that tastes like their usual cup.

Decaf Espresso is the bolder option. It is a dark roast that blends Mexican Arabica, decaffeinated with the Mountain Water Process, and Brazilian Arabica, decaffeinated with the MC process. It has dark cocoa, hazelnut and milk chocolate notes and a full body that holds up well in lattes and cappuccinos.

Both beans are in the decaf coffee collection.

How Do Offices Order Coffee From Caffé Prima?

Offices order Caffé Prima beans in 1kg bags or in 6kg cases, which save up to £9.95 against six single bags. The full range is in the wholesale coffee beans collection. There is no minimum order and no subscription. Orders placed before 3pm are dispatched the same day, and delivery is free on orders over £45. Beans are roasted to our recipes, low and slow, in small batches in the UK, with a maximum of six weeks from roast to delivery.

The easiest way to choose is to taste the beans in your own machine first. Businesses can request a coffee bean sample through the sample request form on the wholesale page, choosing the bean they want to try. Trying it in the office machine shows how it tastes with your own water and milk before you commit to a case.

The same order can cover the rest of the kitchen. Caffé Prima also supplies tea, hot chocolate and chai latte, so one delivery can restock everything the office drinks.