Ground Coffee or Whole Beans: Which Should an Office Buy?

Start with the machine, not the coffee

The machine decides the format. Order the wrong one and it either will not run through the machine or wastes the coffee. The table covers the equipment most UK offices run.

Office machine	Format to order	Why	Where to find it
Bean-to-cup machine	Whole beans	Grinds fresh for each drink from the hopper; most models cannot take ground coffee	Trade coffee beans
Traditional espresso machine with a grinder	Whole beans	The grinder is set to your machine and dose; pre-ground cannot be dialled in	Trade coffee beans · Commercial grinders
Filter or bulk-brew machine	Ground coffee or sachets	No grinder on board; sachets fix the dose per jug	Trade ground coffee · Filter coffee sachets
Cafetières and pour-over in a small kitchen	Ground coffee	No equipment to maintain; order 1kg bags and keep them sealed	Trade ground coffee

Choosing between a bean-to-cup and an espresso machine for the office is covered in our guide Bean to Cup or Espresso Machine: Which Is Better for an Office?. If you are still choosing, browse bean-to-cup machines and filter and bulk-brew machines.

Why whole beans stay fresher

Roasted coffee is a fresh product. Once it leaves the roaster it slowly releases carbon dioxide and takes on oxygen, and both change the flavour. Grinding speeds this up sharply, because ground coffee has a far larger surface in contact with the air than the same weight of whole beans. A bean-to-cup machine sidesteps the problem by grinding seconds before brewing.

Everything on this store is roasted to order in Guildford, so a case arrives with its whole usable life ahead of it rather than having spent weeks in a distributor's warehouse. For an office that means two practical habits: keep the bag sealed until it goes into the hopper, and only fill the hopper with what the team will drink in a day or two.

When ground coffee is the right call

Ground coffee is not a compromise when the machine has no grinder. Filter and bulk-brew machines brew a jug at a time and need a measured dose of filter-ground coffee for each one. Loose ground coffee in 6kg cases is the cheapest route for a kitchen where one person weighs the dose; pre-dosed sachets suit offices where several people make the coffee and over-dosing is the hidden cost.

For meetings, How Much Filter Coffee Do You Need for a Meeting? works through jugs and sachets per head.

Does ground coffee cost more than beans?

Not here. Redber Wholesale prices the two formats identically, so there is no saving in switching. The saving comes from the case size, as the Caffè Italiano prices read from the store on 20 October 2026 show.

Caffè Italiano	Beans	Ground	Price per kilo	Cost per cup
1kg bag	£22.95 · No VAT	£22.95 · No VAT	£22.95	18.4p
6kg case	£124.00 · No VAT	£124.00 · No VAT	£20.67	16.5p

Assumptions: prices checked 20 October 2026; coffee is zero-rated so no VAT applies. Cost per cup uses 8g of coffee per bean-to-cup drink, giving 125 cups per kilo: £22.95 ÷ 125 = 18.4p and £20.67 ÷ 125 = 16.5p. Six 1kg bags would cost £137.70 against £124.00 for a 6kg case, a saving of £13.70. Milk, cups and energy are not included. Run your own figures in the cost-per-cup calculator.

The same blend is available as Caffè Italiano 1kg Ground Coffee for filter machines and cafetières.

How much to order, and in which size

Order the size you will finish while the coffee is at its best. An office of 20 people drinking two cups each per working day gets through 200 cups a week. At 8g a cup that is 1.6kg a week, so a 6kg case lasts just under four weeks. An office using under 1.5kg a week is better served by 1kg bags, and one using 3kg or more should look at 12kg cases.

For a fuller sizing method by headcount, see How Much Coffee Does an Office Need?. If you want to test a format in your own machine before committing to a case, the free trade sample pack is the place to start.

Ground coffee or beans for an office: FAQs

Can you put ground coffee in a bean-to-cup machine?

Not as a rule. A bean-to-cup machine grinds whole beans from its hopper for every drink, and that fresh grind is the point of the machine. A few models have a separate chute for pre-ground coffee, so check the manual before you order ground for one.

Do whole beans stay fresh longer than ground coffee?

Yes. Grinding exposes far more of the coffee to air, so aroma and flavour fade faster once a bag of ground coffee is opened. Whole beans keep better in the bag and are ground seconds before brewing, which is why bean-to-cup and espresso machines use them.

Is ground coffee more expensive than beans?

Not on Redber Wholesale. On 20 October 2026 Caffè Italiano was £22.95 for a 1kg bag and £124.00 for a 6kg case whether you chose beans or ground. Choose the format your machine needs, not the cheaper one.

How should an office store coffee beans?

Keep the bag sealed, cool, out of direct light and away from the heat of the machine. Fill the hopper with a day or two of beans rather than the whole bag, and order a size you will finish within a few weeks.

Do you deliver coffee to offices for free?

Yes. Delivery is free on trade orders over £40, and every coffee is roasted to order at Redber's Guildford roastery before it is dispatched.