$8.50 for a flat white: Coffee prices rising at fastest rate in a decade

Thursday, 12 October 2023

The cost of a takeaway coffee jumped 30 cents in just one year.

The cost of a takeaway coffee is rising faster than the steam from a long black, increasing by 30 cents a cup in just one year.

Latest figures from Stats NZ show the average price of a takeaway coffee rose from $4.33 in June 2022 to $4.63 in the same month this year, a 6.9% increase.

The price hike follows a 5.1% increase the previous year and puts the cost of a coffee on its steepest trajectory in more than a decade.

However, an informal nationwide survey found coffee drinkers were paying an average of $5.30 for their caffeine fix, with the cheapest regular takeaway flat white coming in at $4.50 and the most expensive an eye-watering $8.50.

Hear that loud sound of milk being steamed for your flat white? That's not a good sign.

If paying for your morning brew makes you wince these days, here are a few ways you can keep the cost down:

Take your own cup

Many cafes offer a discount of 50 cents or so if you use your own takeaway cup, and it’s a habit worth getting into – over the course of a couple of weeks, a BYO cup could save you the cost of a full coffee.

And given that a lot of takeaway cups can’t be recycled or easily composted, it’s much easier on the environment too.

Skip the extras

Sure, syrups can be a nice addition to a brew, but they’re seldom free. If you can break your caramel shot habit, you could save yourself another 50c to $1 per cup.

Similarly, if you don’t need a non-dairy alternative for health or ethical reasons, opting for plain old cow’s milk could shave about $1 off your bill.

Get those loyalty gains

Cafes and petrol stations are all aboard the loyalty scheme train, with most offering to clip or scan your card every time you buy a coffee.

How quickly you’ll earn a free cup varies – in some cases, every fifth coffee is free, while other outlets will make your 10th latte on the house.

Watch for sneaky payment fees

Card surcharges are everywhere these days. If you pay with a credit card, you’ll probably pay a surcharge. If you use Paywave, you’ll probably pay a surcharge.

If you keep it old school and actually swipe an eftpos card, you probably won’t pay a surcharge.

By investing in an espresso machine of your own, you can cut the cost of a coffee to around $1.50.

And if all else fails, you could throw it back even further and use cash.

Invest in an at-home machine

I know, I know – cost of living crisis! But you don’t have to spend a fortune to kit out your kitchen with a reasonable coffee machine.

While there are some super expensive machines out there, Kmart’s $99 machine actually blew the much pricier competition away in a Consumer NZ survey.

If $99 still seems like a lot, consider this: At $5.50 a cup, weekday coffee drinkers will spend $1430 a year, while those who also indulge at the weekend will pay $2007 to fuel their flat white habit.

By investing in an espresso machine of your own, you can cut the cost of a coffee to around $1.50 (even less if you buy your beans on special).

At that price, the Kmart machine pays for itself after 25 coffees – less than a month if you drink seven cups a week.

That means a saving of $4 on every other coffee, adding up to $1360 over the rest of the first year and $1460 the following year.

Because this isn’t an ad for Kmart, I’ll also point out that if you opt for a flashier $500 machine, it’ll still pay for itself after 125 coffees, or around three months if you’ve got a daily habit.