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A Pop-in with Andrew Scott, Inflection Point Coffee · Coffee People Podcast

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Hey there everyone. I'm Ryan Wolf, the host of The
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I'll just I'll just get started. Hey there everyone, welcome to
2:00
the coffee People podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Wolt.
2:03
The show is presented by Rostar coffee packaging.
2:06
You can find them online at rostar.com.
2:09
You'll find that link and the ones who are newsletter and our
2:12
coffee smarter podcast. In this podcast show notes,
2:16
you'll also find links to Inflection Point coffee.
2:20
Today we're popping in with Andrew Scott, the founder and
2:22
head roaster of Inflection Point.
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So if you haven't poured yourself a cup of coffee, now is
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the time. I've got mine.
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Andrew, welcome back to the Coffee People podcast.
2:33
How are you today? Oh, I'm, I'm very good today and
2:36
it's it's very good to be back. Thanks for having me.
2:39
I'm glad you're good. It's kind of a gloomy morning
2:43
outside. I've been drinking coffee for
2:45
three hours. I'm wearing my National Park
2:49
sweatshirt. It's not an Eagle sweatshirt.
2:50
I just want to make that clear. Congrats to the Eagles, but you
2:54
know, the national parks need my support right now, so that's
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what I'm doing. I got to say like one of the the
3:01
weird odd things about being in the the farmers markets on the
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weekends is I, I get these tours coming through San Diego.
3:08
It's this tour of destination right, who are coming here from
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Maryland, from Montana, from, you know, all over the place.
3:17
And and they remind me just how how very good we do have it
3:21
here. I mean we're we're kind of I I
3:22
I'm kind of complaining about gloomy and and, you know, less
3:28
than perfect weather because it's only 65 in the middle of
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February. You know, we we've.
3:35
Got a, you know, but it's, there's no humidity, Andrew, and
3:38
it just, it feels colder than 65.
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We're so we're so slow. My mom was just visiting and she
3:47
sent me a photo. When she pulled into her
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driveway, there was about a foot of snow waiting for her.
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And so I thought, you know, you just got to, you got to make the
3:57
best of it. No idea what it's been.
4:00
I don't know, maybe. I mean, I saw you at SCA last
4:03
year, so that was probably the last time I saw you in real
4:06
life. I think ran into there before
4:09
that. We had already chatted on the
4:10
show maybe a year before that. At that time you had brought in
4:15
this new electric roaster. You were building out the
4:18
garage. Where are we at today?
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Are we still building? Are we still permitting?
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Are we still figuring it all out?
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What's the story on the roasting operations at Inflection Point?
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OK, so there there was, there was a whole lot of drama.
4:34
We we don't need to get go through and and rehash all of
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that. I'm, I'm really trying to put
4:39
the worst of it behind me, but but at the end of the day, we,
4:44
we did get it done. The space that you're seeing
4:46
behind me now, the last time we spoke, even though it was only
4:51
an audio recording there, you, you could see the space behind
4:54
me was very much a garage. We had cleaned it up.
4:58
We, we had, you know, made it presentable and, and usable, but
5:02
it was still very much a garage. And now this is, this is my
5:06
roastery. I, I every once in a while I'll
5:08
still like trip up and call it a garage, but it's, it's a
5:12
dedicated space for, for what I'm doing now.
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So it's, it's very finished, finally finished.
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It's technically, technically permitted as an Adu, so an
5:23
auxiliary dwelling unit within California, which is important
5:28
for some of the, the permitting and, and the licensing.
5:32
So technically we, we could rent this out as a, a studio
5:37
apartment, but instead we're using it for my, my roastery
5:41
space. We did some upgrades to make it
5:45
usable for my roastery. So the, the outlets have a bit
5:49
more juice going to them. We've got a couple 220 outlets.
5:52
We've got space for a a larger machine to come in soon.
5:59
That's exciting. So we'll be working on that.
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But with the the Adu, we've got a full bathroom instead of just
6:06
a hand washing station or a sink.
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You know, we had to put in a full kitchenette.
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So again, another sink. We had to get a a stove top, a
6:15
cook top surface. We had to have a refrigerator in
6:18
here, which I was going to do anyway for cold brew, but you
6:22
know, now it's a requirement. But it's done.
6:27
It's, it's, it's home. This is, this is, I'm, I'm
6:30
comfortable, I'm happy here. I, I like, I like being in here.
6:34
So that was good getting that finished, which helped us do our
6:41
our next round of licensing and permits.
6:44
You just said something important, which is this is home
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and it feels good, but it is attached to your home.
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How does the family feel about maybe the construction part
6:54
being finished? What being finished where
6:59
everybody is thrilled. You know, I've got two small
7:01
dogs who are more than happy not to have people coming in and out
7:06
every day at random times of the day.
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They're they're little guy so they're they're a little bit
7:12
wound up so that this is good going back to normal there.
7:15
And then honestly, the other side of this space was our our
7:21
bedroom. So the construction here
7:23
affected that. It moved us out of that space
7:26
for longer than it should have. So things, things, things got
7:30
tense. Things got tense for a little
7:32
bit. But again, now that it's all
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it's done, it's done, it's finished, it's pretty and, and
7:40
and we can put all that beat behind us now.
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Well, so then what's the story with inflection point?
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How has this either helped or hurt?
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Or have you grown? I know you're still doing
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farmers markets, You know, what's the what's the status of
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the roastery? Well, during that that year of
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chaos, we, we definitely, you know, hit a took a took a bit of
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a, a hit sales wise. We couldn't keep up with what we
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had been doing. I lost access to my larger
8:11
roaster for an extended period. I had to downsize to something
8:15
smaller that was a bit more portable.
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There was lots of issues there. Now that it's done and I do have
8:21
that roaster again, that's back to good.
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But like I, I mentioned before, the the other big thing that
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finishing this space really allowed us to do is apply for
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we, we had been a cottage A operation food operation here
8:38
in, in California. This allowed us to apply to
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that, that next step, that Cottage B, and really get
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through that process a little bit easier than than it would
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have been otherwise. So good thing.
8:53
So back to kind of ramping up again on especially I think on
8:58
the wholesale side, right? So that again, so let's let's
9:02
talk about, you know, those that's one of the big
9:04
differences between the cottage A and the cottage B, right?
9:07
So in California, Cottage A limits you to direct sales only.
9:12
So I have to be involved in the sale at some point.
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Either you're ordering from my website and I'm shipping it to
9:19
you in California, or you're buying it from me at one of the,
9:24
the farmers markets, But I'm directly involved in the sale,
9:27
right? Cottage B allows me now to go to
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these cafes, these little gourmet shops and say, hey, not
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only can you serve my coffee if you wanted to serve my coffee,
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but you can actually like carry and sell my beans now.
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So that's I I can now do indirect sales, which is a.
9:47
Huge, huge, you know. Change, Yeah, yeah, that's a a
9:50
big thing for me. I am still limited to, you know,
9:53
just operating within California, but given the size
9:57
of the, you know, population and the economy in the state, you
10:01
know, that's, that's OK. I'm I'm OK with that.
10:05
I always think to myself, like, how are we continuing to open
10:09
more and more and more roasters and coffee shops?
10:12
But the reality is we're just absorbing them.
10:14
The the demand seems somewhat infinite.
10:16
I mean, I can walk to seven roasters from my house.
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I mean, it just never ends. And they don't seem to be
10:22
slowing down. I kept thinking, hey, someone's
10:26
going to close and it just hasn't happened at this point.
10:30
I saw a post you did recently about kind of some chaotic
10:35
expectation for the future. You know, coffee is such an
10:37
international industry. I'm not asking you to get into
10:41
politics or anything, but I, I am wondering how you know your
10:46
the cost of goods is going to depend a lot on tariffs, which
10:49
is in the news, obviously every single minute of every day right
10:52
now. I've been told I'm not looking
10:54
at the news myself. How do you plan for a future?
10:59
You know, you'd also mentioned something about you were just
11:03
you were going through your your books and you realize maybe
11:06
we're not making as much money as I thought.
11:08
And so how do you plan for an uncertain future for cost of
11:12
goods? So like I'll go back to what I I
11:18
mentioned a few times. The first time we, we spoke here
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is I, I am in a pretty fortunate place where yes, I'm not making
11:26
a lot of money, but I am covering overhead, I'm covering
11:30
operations. It is self-sustaining at this
11:34
point and, and we are making a little bit.
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So I've been able to like build up.
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And so it's, it's really more trying to plan for and, and to
11:47
eliminate as much of the chaos as you can, right?
11:50
So it, whatever ultimately happens right now, it's, it's
11:55
the what if that is kind of driving everybody a little bit
11:59
crazy. And so if I can just get ahead
12:02
of so many of those what ifs, I can, I can avoid some of the
12:07
crazy. So last year, before we left on
12:11
vacation, I put in an order for a full year's supply of my
12:16
coffee bags. You know what I would typically
12:19
go through in a full year? I, I was in a position to be
12:22
able to put in an order like that.
12:25
So no matter what happens this year, my bag supply is taken
12:30
care of. I'm good there.
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Being a smaller roaster, though, I am very much limited.
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I, I can't really do some of the, you know, some of what the
12:43
larger roasters can do. I, I, I don't do a lot of future
12:46
purchases and, and buying stuff afloat.
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I, I, I am very much a spot purchaser.
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And so that puts me kind of at the, the mercy of, you know, the
12:57
markets and whatever's happening at the time, just because I
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don't have the space to, to have a, a lot of inventory here.
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And so it's, I, I, I do what I can to fill my space as much as
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I can now and just kind of write it out as long as I can.
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But I'm in a position again, being in my, my home, my garage,
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this space here, my overhead is incredibly low.
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I, I'm the only one. My wife helps me out with the
13:27
book. She helps me out at one of the
13:28
farmers markets. But otherwise it's still just
13:32
me. So, you know, I don't have
13:36
employees that I, I have to worry about paying and, and all
13:39
of that, that. So being small in, in some ways,
13:44
it puts me very much at the mercy of what's happening in the
13:48
moment. The best I can really do is kind
13:51
of try to keep an eye on things, get ahead of what I can and try
13:56
to avoid some of the the turbulence, some of the chaos,
14:00
you know, where possible. Well, and you're looking at it
14:04
as a sense too is at least you're nimble, you know, you can
14:07
make adjustments without having to go through like a process
14:10
with employees or with staffing or whatever.
14:12
You're the one making the call in the moment.
14:15
What is the vibe been like at the farmers markets in this
14:19
brutal California winter? Are people excited about the
14:23
farmers markets? You know, we've got one down the
14:25
street from us I love to go to, but it definitely seems like the
14:29
attendance is down a little bit. So, you know, it, it depends on
14:33
the market. I, I got very fortunate in the
14:37
markets that I got into the, the La Jolla open air market.
14:42
There is, is one of the big markets in, in the San Diego
14:45
area. And that was the second farmers
14:47
market I got into ever. I mean, that was, that was a
14:51
huge get for me. That one really kept me going.
14:54
We're also in a farmers market in Encinitas.
14:57
Again, it's it's another big enough market, there's enough
15:00
foot traffic, there's enough regulars that come through
15:03
there, enough tourists that come through that.
15:06
I got very fortunate with some of the markets that that I've
15:09
gotten into. I've definitely seen other
15:12
markets there. I don't know.
15:18
I mean, it's, it's that, that tough thing like that everybody
15:20
they want to support local, they want to support small, they want
15:24
to support that, but you're not necessarily getting the, the
15:30
premium, you know, the, the price premium.
15:33
Let's let's put it that way that, that you used to look
15:35
forward to getting at at a farmer's market, right?
15:38
It's, it's, you're not getting better prices anymore, but you
15:42
feel good about supporting the people that are there that
15:46
you've you've developed these relationships with, you've got
15:49
this community with. So it's, you know, everybody's
15:53
we're, we're trying. It's everybody's just yeah.
15:59
You know, our farmers markets here in Southern California in
16:02
particular and along, you know, this this corridor, one of the
16:07
the neat things is a lot of the food that you find there is
16:10
grown close, relatively speaking.
16:13
You know, when I talk to the farmer that I go that I buy farm
16:17
box from Yasukochi Farms. Little shout out to them.
16:21
You know, they're located 30 miles from here.
16:23
They're not like 1,000,000 miles away or in another country.
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They're not, you know, that I can actually talk to them at the
16:29
farmers market and they tell me what they're doing at the farm
16:32
or they'll send me a message, you know, about egg prices, for
16:34
example, you know, and we can stay communicating with that and
16:38
we can, you know, I, I use egg prices as, as an example
16:41
because, because the awareness that prices are going up is so
16:45
drastic and people are so concerned about it.
16:47
When I get that message from him or from them, it's not a
16:52
surprise so much. Coffee prices have been in the
16:55
news a lot lately with people talking about the C price.
16:58
Now, that might not affect every specialty roaster, but people
17:02
are aware that prices are going up.
17:04
Have you noticed that? I mean, have you had pricing
17:06
increases because of changes in the marketplace?
17:10
I, I, I've been struggling with that one.
17:12
We, we had to implement our very first price increase since we,
17:16
we opened up at the beginning of this year.
17:19
Going back to that, that post where we were talking about how
17:23
the, the pricing that we had been sticking with, I mean, I
17:26
felt really good sticking with that pricing that we had in
17:30
place for four solid years. We didn't touch prices at all.
17:37
While everybody else was talking about shrink flation and infant
17:40
prices and everything else, we stuck with, you know, a full 16
17:45
oz pound. We didn't touch our prices on
17:48
it. We, we, we, you know, we're able
17:50
to stick to it again, because of how nimble, because of our low
17:55
overhead and all those things. We, we could afford to do that.
17:58
But we, we just, you know, the, the remodel that we did
18:03
finishing this space, that cost money.
18:06
I, I have to pay for that. So it's, it's an additional cost
18:10
there that has to get rolled in somehow.
18:15
And our plans for growth, what we do want to do to, to continue
18:18
to grow going forward, I, I need to be able to plan for that.
18:21
And so we took all of that into consideration and we had some
18:25
time to sit down and run some numbers and, and realize we were
18:29
frankly, we were kind of giving away some of our coffee.
18:31
I mean, we, we were making nothing once we accounted for
18:35
all of the market fees and, and everything else there.
18:40
And so it was just time we, we had to do it.
18:42
We, we had to do some, some price adjustments beginning this
18:46
year. And now I'm, I'm looking ahead
18:49
and you mentioned the sea market prices, you know, where the, the
18:52
cost of the green coffee itself is at unprecedented levels right
18:57
now. It's again, doesn't fully relate
19:03
to specialty and then all that, but it's still it, it, there's,
19:06
there's an effect there. We, we have to account for that.
19:11
And so as, as much as I would love to say that these, these
19:14
new prices that we settled on will be able to stick with for,
19:17
you know, 3-4 years to come, I don't know, I don't know.
19:21
I mean, we we have to be serious about like you said, you know,
19:25
you've kind of surprised that there hasn't been this this
19:28
rush, this this rash of, you know, roaster Closings.
19:33
But like how nimble, how how much is every roaster going to
19:38
be able to kind of keep up with what may be heming soon?
19:42
So it's yeah, we we had to increase prices.
19:47
I hated doing it. But in order for us to be able
19:50
to not only continue what we doing now, but to go where we
19:53
want to go, it was a necessity. I hope we don't.
19:57
Have to get the problem with people.
20:01
Like you, Andrew, and frankly like myself, is that we want
20:05
people to have this thing that we're doing.
20:07
We want to share whatever The thing is that we're creating or
20:09
making with you and we don't, you don't want to pay for it.
20:13
Just take it. You know what?
20:14
Why don't you take it? And let me give you a present
20:16
while we're at it because I really just am excited that
20:20
somebody is listening or cares or wants to read something I've
20:23
written. And I think coffee, a lot of
20:25
coffee roasters are like that too.
20:28
They'll take the hit when they can.
20:30
Anything that we, you know, as we're just popping in today,
20:33
anything that you want to get out in the world or off your
20:36
chest or you wanted to say about your coffee these days.
20:40
The coffee these days. So I, no, I, I feel, I feel
20:45
really good about what I've been doing.
20:47
You know what we're trying to grow here.
20:50
You know, part of the remodel, we, we added more than double
20:54
the amount of solar panels that we had before.
20:57
We are a net contributor to the grid.
21:00
We are doing what we can. I, I think I ran into you and I
21:05
mentioned I had this thought about relating sustainability to
21:09
the good place, you know, the, something like that.
21:13
And it, it, it really just comes down to we, we are so fully
21:18
interconnected at this point. We, we can't this, this idea of,
21:22
you know, becoming this isolationist.
21:24
Oh, we can, we can just do it here.
21:27
The coffee that we grow in Hawaii and Puerto Rico would
21:31
sustain the country for all of what, two weeks maybe?
21:35
I was going to guess less than that.
21:37
But probably less than that. I'm sure somebody can do the
21:40
math if, if we ask nicely. So I mean, we, we have to, we
21:45
have to, if, if we're, if we're going to continue to, you know,
21:48
do the things and, and have the things that we enjoy these,
21:51
these little luxuries like coffee.
21:53
We, we have to rely on other places on, on other countries.
21:58
And we're just so interconnected.
22:02
It's, it's that you have to be aware of it and you can only do
22:06
your part, you know, as much as you can.
22:08
You can only really worry about as much as you can do.
22:10
So like I said, we're, we're doing the solar power, we've got
22:15
electric roasters. I, I look for coffees that are
22:19
sustainably grown. That's, that's kind of one of
22:21
my, my other things there. I those are the little things I
22:25
can do to try to keep coffee clean, keeping it small and
22:30
local, trying to keep it affordable.
22:32
I mean, those, those are the little things I can do.
22:34
That's, that's what I can control.
22:36
The rest of it I have to be aware of, but I can't.
22:41
I can't worry too much about it. You know, I bet it's easier
22:44
because you're sitting in this lovely new space.
22:46
You can just tune it all out. Oh, it's so pretty.
22:49
It's so pretty. It looks nice, Andrew.
22:54
It's been a pleasure. As always, thanks for being here
22:56
to everyone listening. I'm going to link to Inflection
22:59
Point Coffee. I'm going to link to rostar.com,
23:02
our presenting sponsor. Of course, our newsletter.
23:05
All of that's going to be in your show notes, or you can find
23:07
it on the coffee peoplepodcast.com.
23:11
Just search for coffee people wherever you're listening.
23:13
Apple, Spotify, like it, subscribe it.
23:16
I think it helps. Nobody really knows anymore.
23:20
What does help is having great collaborators.
23:22
I know that I've had those and great guests.
23:24
You know, Andrew's been here several times, so make sure
23:26
you're checking out all those episodes.
23:28
Thanks for listening to us. Share the stories of coffee
23:30
people. Tip your baristas, especially at
23:33
farmers markets. Be sure to drink good coffee,
23:36
Andrew. Anything else?
23:37
I I think you covered that that that, that sounds great serious.