Coffee Roasting Company Revenue Benchmark

Average Coffee Roasting Company Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every coffee and tea manufacturer with paid employees, from a neighborhood roaster with a small drum to a national plant, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of establishments gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$13,353,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $14.7 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 1,102 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $13,353,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Coffee and Tea Manufacturing, NAICS 311920. The Census category is Coffee and Tea Manufacturing, which counts coffee roasters together with tea blenders and makers of coffee and tea concentrates and extracts. Coffee shops that serve drinks are counted in food services. Classified separately in group 3119: 311911 Roasted Nuts and Peanut Butter Manufacturing; 311919 Other Snack Food Manufacturing; 311930 Flavoring Syrup and Concentrate Manufacturing, and 4 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Smaller cohort

Other Food Manufacturing, NAICS 3119, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 49.7 to 57.6 percent. This benchmark covers Other Food Manufacturing, NAICS 3119, as a whole, and this category accounts for 1,102 of the 4,827 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Coffee and Tea Manufacturing, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 9.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because green coffee, packaging and roasting equipment carry most of the cost and because large plants in this category produce huge volumes with modest staffing.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes green coffee, packaging, freight and the wholesale discounts that distributors and cafes receive, none of which the census reports for this table.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Coffee and Tea Manufacturing, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 21.3 people, and the industry averaged 1.1 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount blends a few large plants employing hundreds with many small roasters employing a handful of people, so it describes no single roastery.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Coffee Roasting Company: why a category that includes national plants says little about a craft roaster.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Craft roaster or national plant? Large plants supplying grocery shelves and foodservice sit in the same category as a roaster serving a few dozen cafes, and their volumes pull the average far above what a small operation collects. Read the figure as a description of the category, not as a target for a start-up roastery.
• Wholesale or direct to consumer? Bags sold to cafes and grocers earn wholesale prices and depend on a few accounts, while online subscriptions and a tasting bar earn retail prices with marketing and shipping costs attached. The channel mix behind a roaster's receipts decides its margin and its risk.
• What does green coffee cost this year? Green bean prices move with harvests, currencies and futures markets, while a roaster's bag prices lag behind, so a roaster's margin in the reference year says little about the following one.
• How much capacity sits idle? A roasting drum has a fixed throughput, and a roaster running a few batches a week carries the same equipment cost as one running daily. How full the roasting schedule is decides whether the drum earns its keep, and no receipts figure shows it.
• Is there a cafe attached? Many roasters open a tasting bar or cafe that earns retail margins and builds the brand, but it brings restaurant-style labor, rent and permits. Where the cafe is a separate establishment, the census counts it in food services rather than here.
• Does the roaster also make tea? The category includes tea blending and packaging, so some establishments behind this figure sell tea alongside or instead of coffee. Product mix within the category is not published.