Office coffee isn't a personal need simply multiplied by headcount. Some people drink every day, some only when they need focus, some like it bold, and others want a lighter option. So the office's task is organizing a collective need in a way that's easy to run without turning the catalog into a hard-to-manage jumble of choices.

An office needs to look at behavior, not just headcount

The number of people present at a workplace indicates potential scale, but doesn't reveal how many actually drink coffee. A study on 121 office workers in Jakarta recorded varying consumption levels between individuals and found no significant relationship between coffee consumption and improved alertness in the study sample. This is an important reminder: data from one group can't be turned into a common quota for every office.

Factors like frequency, time of drinking, taste preference, and brewing method need to be asked about alongside headcount. If an office has a large group drinking one type of coffee daily and a small group drinking only occasionally, the way products are organized can differ from a place where everyone has relatively uniform habits.

So the first step isn't dividing headcount by a fixed quota, but sketching out the actual usage groups.

One type for everyone, or several options?

An office can choose a single type of coffee to reduce purchasing, storage, and instructional effort. This suits situations where needs are relatively uniform and the main goal is simple operation. But if tastes are spread widely, a single option can leave a recurring group of people unsatisfied.

A second option is having one main product plus a supplementary choice. This creates extra room for taste without opening up too many product codes. The benefit of variety only appears when the options genuinely differ on needs users care about; adding several nearly identical products can make the decision harder.

Research on choice overload shows the effect of the number of options depends on the complexity of the choice set, the difficulty of the task, how unclear preferences are, and the buyer's goals. This is especially worth noting in an office, where the buyer and the drinker can be two different groups.

Package size and storage determine practicality

A product with a suitable flavor but an unsuitable package size can still turn into a poor choice. An office needs to account for where the coffee is kept, how often the bag is opened, its ability to reseal after each use, and how long a bag sits in storage. For ground coffee, controlling oxygen, moisture, and heat after opening is especially worth attention.

A large package can reduce how often you need to restock, but if usage isn't consistent, part of the product can sit for a long time after opening. A smaller package may be easier to manage for quality but creates more purchasing and package-switching work. There's no optimal size for every office; the decision has to rest on actual usage rhythm.

Wansink showed package size can affect usage behavior in certain circumstances. For an office, this further shows that package size shouldn't be treated as secondary information in the buying decision.

An easy-to-run decision framework

You can split the choice into four questions: how many people actually drink; frequency of use per week; how many significant taste groups exist; and what are the post-opening storage conditions. If most users behave similarly, a single main choice is usually easy to run. If there are two clear groups, it may be worth considering two options rather than expanding without limit.

The person in charge of purchasing should also track actual purchase and usage amounts rather than relying only on an initial forecast. After a while, internal data will reveal which type gets used quickly, which tends to sit unused, and which package size causes inconvenience. This is better data than a quota borrowed from somewhere else.

The final result should be evaluated by three criteria: whether drinkers have a suitable choice, whether the person in charge finds it easy to buy and store, and whether wasted amounts are kept under control.

The person in charge should also distinguish usage need from purchase need. An office may have many drinkers but still buy in small batches if storage space is limited. Conversely, a place with suitable storage can buy on a longer cycle. This decision should be adjusted from actual consumption data, rather than using headcount as the sole proxy for coffee need.

References

• Herqutanto, H. et al. (2024). Coffee consumption and alertness: a study of office workers in Jakarta. Frontiers in Nutrition, 11, 1425707. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1425707
• Samoggia, A. & Riedel, B. (2018). Consumers' perceptions of coffee health benefits and motives for coffee consumption and purchasing. Appetite, 129, 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.07.002
• Wansink, B. (1996). Can package size accelerate usage volume? Journal of Marketing, 60(3), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299606000301