In my highly unscientific observations over the past couple of years, I have\u00a0observed\u00a0a trend of\u00a0coffee companies packaging their coffee into smaller and smaller bag sizes. What gives? Well, I think there are probably a number of reasons why companies might choose to go for certain bag sizes over others. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each, as well as possible rationale.<\/p>\n
16 oz (1 lb) bags<\/strong>: The standard (at least, at one point in time). As a Californian transplanted to Texas, when I first started mail-ordering coffee, it was through Peet’s<\/a>, and their standard size when purchasing through their website is 1 lb. Based on a recommendation on the Coffee Geek forum<\/a>, I tried Red Bird roasters<\/a> and their standard size is also 1 lb. Granted, two roasters\u00a0is a rather small sample size, but I got used to the idea that coffee would come in 1 lb bags. I would drink 1 lb in about 2 weeks, so my consumption rate was about right for drinking the coffee at its freshness peak.<\/p>\n 12 oz bags<\/strong>: Most coffee at the grocery store is packaged in 12 oz bags, including companies like Peet’s, who sell by the pound on their website. Why?? Who\u00a0knows. Perhaps it has to do with shelf space. Perhaps\u00a0retailers think that people that buy coffee from the grocery store won’t want to spend above a certain price point, so they package the coffee into smaller bags to keep the cost under whatever this price point might be ($10?). Most importantly, coffee roasters started selling their mail-order<\/em> coffee in 12 oz bags. This prompted a\u00a0rather heated discussion\u00a0I spotted online\u00a0about\u00a0if the change in bag sizing was a good thing, and more than a little speculation about if coffee companies were packaging their coffee into smaller bags but charging customers the same as the 1 lb bag price (or at least, not discounting proportionally). Some people really liked the smaller bags, because it better suited their own coffee consumption habits, whereas others complained because they had to purchase coffee more often, and shipping gets expensive.<\/p>\n One rationale I saw for 12 oz coffee from a mail-order standpoint is that shipping services charge by the pound, and they round up if you are over 1 pound. If you have 1 lb of coffee and you add the weight of the shipping box, the delivery service\u00a0will charge you the shipping rate for 2 lbs,\u00a0even though you’re only getting 1 lb worth of beans. So, by making the bags only 12 oz, companies can keep the shipped weight at or under 1 lb and thereby save the customer from paying extra for shipping on beans they aren’t receiving.<\/p>\n Another rationale I saw for 12 oz coffee bags comes from Hedgehog and Owl Coffee Roasters<\/a>, where basically the roaster says 1 lb of unroasted coffee nets around 12 oz of roasted coffee, so it makes sense to package the coffee this way.<\/p>\n 10 oz bags<\/strong>: This is something I’m seeing more often lately, notably from Huckleberry and Sterling Roasters. I have no real rationale on this.<\/p>\n 8.8 oz bags<\/strong>: To date, the only roaster I’m seeing selling this size is Coava, and they package their coffee into 250 g bags (which is 8.8 oz) because they roast by the kilogram rather than the pound. By sticking with the metric system, they claim it reduces waste and promotes freshness as well as divides evenly with most brew methods.<\/p>\n