How Much Coffee Does a School Staff Room Need?

Staff room coffee is usually bought once a term by a school business manager, bursar or catering lead. This guide gives a planning figure per member of staff, turns it into cases and sachets for three sizes of school, and shows what the break-time rush does to the choice of machine. Every figure is arithmetic with the assumptions shown.

How many cups does a staff room get through?

A staff room behaves like an office with the taps turned on three times a day: before registration, at morning break and at lunch. Two cups per person per teaching day is the same planning figure we use for offices; the school day is shorter but the breaks are busier. Count everyone who uses the staff room — teaching assistants, office and site staff included — then use the table.

Staff using the staff room	Cups a day	Cups a week	Coffee a week (beans)	Trade case to buy	Per 12-week term
25 (small primary)	50	250	2.0kg	One 6kg case every 3 weeks	24kg — four 6kg cases
60 (large primary or small secondary)	120	600	4.8kg	One 12kg case every 2.5 weeks	57.6kg — five 12kg cases
120 (large secondary)	240	1,200	9.6kg	One 12kg case every 6 school days	115.2kg — ten 12kg cases

Assumptions: 2 cups per person per teaching day; 5 teaching days a week; 8g of beans per cup on a bean-to-cup machine (125 cups per kilo); a 12-week term; cases rounded to whole cases. Under 1.5kg a week, 1kg bags are the better buy; 1.5kg to 3kg a week suits a 6kg case; 3kg a week and over suits a 12kg case.

Beans or filter sachets for a school staff room?

Most staff rooms run either a bean-to-cup machine grinding whole beans for each drink, or a filter machine brewing jugs from pre-measured ground coffee sachets. The quantity of coffee is similar; the cost per cup and the queue at break are not.

Staff	Sachets a day	Sachets a week	Boxes of 40 per term
25	5	25	8 boxes (300 sachets)
60	10	50	15 boxes (600 sachets)
120	20	100	30 boxes (1,200 sachets)

Assumptions: one 60g sachet brews a 1.5-litre jug, which is 12 cups of 125ml; jugs are brewed whole, so sachets a day are rounded up; 5 teaching days a week; a 12-week term; boxes rounded up to whole boxes.

On cost per cup, the two routes land close together. Caffè Italiano beans in a 12kg case are £226.00 with no VAT, which is £18.83 a kilo and 15.1p for an 8g cup. A box of 40 Café Français 60g sachets is £50.28 with no VAT, which is £1.26 a sachet and 10.5p a cup if every cup in the jug is drunk. A jug left to stew until lunch is where the sachet saving disappears — our sachets versus ground coffee guide treats waste as the real variable. Put your own staff count into the cost-per-cup calculator to compare.

Coping with the break-time rush

The number that decides the machine is not cups a day but cups in twenty minutes. If half of a 60-strong staff want a hot drink at morning break, that is 30 drinks in a 20-minute window — one every 40 seconds, with everyone arriving at once.

A bean-to-cup machine makes drinks one at a time, so at break the queue is the limit. A filter machine brews ahead: two 1.5-litre jugs started before the bell give 24 cups waiting on the hotplate, and a twin brewer with four jugs covers 48. A larger school can run both — filter jugs for break and a bean-to-cup machine for lunchtime lattes. See filter and bulk brew machines for the jug route; both collections check out online up to £5,000.

Ordering around term dates

Schools buy coffee for about 38 teaching weeks a year, not 52, and the cupboard should be nearly empty on the last day of term. We roast to order, so there is no advantage in stocking a whole year in September: order per term or per half term and the coffee arrives freshly roasted each time.

The 60-staff example is five 12kg cases a term, £1,130.00 at today's price; the 120-staff school is ten cases, £2,260.00. Both sit well inside the £5,000 online checkout limit, and trade orders over £40 are delivered free. On the sachet route, 15 boxes of Café Français is £754.20 a term. Add catering tea bags, hot chocolate and a decaf option to the same order so the staff room is stocked in one delivery.

Working: 5 × £226.00 = £1,130.00; 10 × £226.00 = £2,260.00; 15 × £50.28 = £754.20. Prices read from the store on 26 October 2026, coffee is zero-rated so no VAT applies.

Sixth-form cafés and catering contractors

A sixth-form or college café selling drinks to students is a café, not a staff room, and should be sized on drinks sold rather than head count. If you cater for several schools, the same cases and sachets check out online per site; our Olive Dining case study shows one caterer keeping a single coffee standard across more than 24 school sites. For a multi-site machine estate or servicing agreement, start with the trade enquiry form.

School staff room coffee FAQs

How much coffee should I allow per member of staff?

Two cups per person per teaching day is a sound planning figure. At 8g a cup that is 16g of beans per person per day, or 80g a week, so every ten staff add roughly 0.8kg a week to the order.

Is a 12kg case too much for a small primary school?

Usually, yes. A school with 25 staff uses about 2kg a week, so a 6kg case every three weeks keeps the coffee fresh. Move to 12kg cases once weekly use passes about 3kg.

Should a staff room have a bean-to-cup or a filter machine?

Choose by the break-time peak. Filter jugs brewed before the bell serve a crowd in minutes; a bean-to-cup machine makes better milk drinks but serves one person at a time. A larger school can run both.

Can we order coffee only in term time?

Yes. Order per term or per half term; because we roast to order, each delivery arrives freshly roasted. Trade orders over £40 are delivered free.

How much decaf does a staff room need?

Treat it as a small share of the total and start with a single 1kg bag of decaf beans or a box of decaf sachets alongside the main order, then adjust from what actually runs out.