06/08/21 

A Million Cups Of Coffee

We revealed a few weeks ago that Hamptons are just about to open it’s high end solution to the lack of cafe facilities, the Tea Hut.

Set at the side of the main building, next to the tennis courts, it will serve tea and coffee, pre packed snacks and have outdoor seating.

We thought we’d crunch some numbers to show what a daft idea this is. Based on catering packs of coffee, and 225ml cardboard cups, the profit margin on a cup of coffee sold for £1, is about 88p.

You may remember that pre Covid , the owners of Hamptons had an Islamic loan to repay of £615,000. Factoring in staff wages, and set up costs, they would need to sell a whopping 725,000 cups of coffee to clear just the Islamic loan.

However, we believe that the level of debt is far higher at Hamptons, and last years micro accounts filed at Companies House (up to June 2020), show net liabilities (a company's debts after its current assets have been subtracted from its current liabilities) of £152,644. Of course, we’ve had over a year more of lockdown since then.

We think a more realistic figure for net liabilities would now be around £250,000, giving an estimated grand total of £865,000 of debts, which would require the Tea Hut to close to a million cups of coffee, to cover staff costs and satisfy the debt.

Should be a simple task, it equates to:

• 67 cups for every Gt Baddow resident.

• 2,739 cups per day x 365 days (including Christmas Day).

• Enough coffee by volume to nearly fill an Olympic swimming pool.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT !

KBO