Building a Coffee Tech Stack That Scales: Key Lessons from Industry Experts

For coffee shops and roasters, the array of available tools and technologies can feel overwhelming. Point-of-sale systems, loyalty programs, task managers, inventory platforms, roasting logs, HR software—assembling them into a coherent system is like solving a complex puzzle.

A recent live session examined how the modern coffee tech stack—the collection of software a business relies on—is evolving. With more choices than ever, the goal was to understand how growing cafes and roasters can make smart decisions about the tools they adopt. The session featured two guests:

• Mary Lozada, senior product manager for cafes at Cropster, a software provider that helps coffee shops manage quality. Lozada grew up on her family’s Hacienda El Recreo, an award-winning specialty coffee farm in Venezuela, and previously owned a roastery and cafe before joining Cropster.
• Dane Atkinson, founder and CEO of Odeko, a distributor and operations partner for thousands of independent cafes. Atkinson is a former bar owner turned entrepreneur who has spent three decades building tools for small businesses.

The discussion yielded numerous valuable insights; three key takeaways are highlighted below. For the complete conversation, the full replay is available here.

The live session was presented by Cropster.

1. How the Wrong Tech Tools Drain Money and Energy

When the right tools and processes are in place, technology can boost efficiency—but when they’re not, it can become a hindrance. Lozada and Atkinson identified the most common ways coffee businesses lose time and money due to inefficient technology.

Data Duplication and Conflict

Consider a bag of coffee priced at $18.50. That price likely appears in multiple systems: your point-of-sale, your e-commerce platform, your inventory tool, your marketing materials. The more places you store it, the more places you must update when the price changes—and the greater the chance you’ll forget one, leading to upset customers who expected $18.50 but are charged $20.50.

This is the core problem with data duplication: it increases the likelihood of errors. A single customer feeling overcharged is bad enough; shipping pallets to the wrong address or having invoices off by thousands of dollars is far worse.

Lozada frequently hears about such errors from customers: “The duplication of information becomes quite overwhelming,” she said. “And then the errors that come through that—going back and checking what you’re doing, what you’re selling, or what you’re forecasting” creates delays in daily operations and limits how efficiently and accurately your team can work.

Cost of Goods Blind Spots

Atkinson noted that cafes lacking specialized inventory planning tools struggle to understand supply and demand, resulting in higher cost of goods sold. He claimed Starbucks spends roughly 26% of revenue on COGS, while the average independent cafe pays closer to 37–40%.

“That is a death knell, right? You’re in a direct fashion selling this cup for almost 50–70 cents more than the person across the street,” he said. “It’s really hard to compete.”

2. Local Businesses Depend Heavily on Google Reviews

Atkinson said 60% of a coffee shop’s new customers find them by searching phrases like “coffee near me.” He added that Google, in both search and maps, prioritizes businesses with high ratings in results.

Ranking high is clearly essential for attracting new business, and encouraging positive reviews is critical to ranking. Odeko’s research indicates that a 4.5-star rating prevents a shop from being buried in search results, and moving from 4.0 to 4.5 can nearly double visibility.

“If you look up, ‘Where’s coffee near me’ on an incognito browser, you won’t find yourself unless you have recent reviews and a high score,” Atkinson said. “You’re actually invisible.”

3. Tech Choices Must Evolve as You Grow

Technology doesn’t stand still, and neither do business needs. Both Lozada and Atkinson argued that cafes and roasters should reassess their tech stacks as they expand and become more complex.

Espresso Machine Data for Quality Control

Lozada discussed Cropster Cafes’ telemetry features: the software connects directly to espresso machines to monitor shot pulling. Cafes can use this data to actively manage quality control across multiple locations.

“Once you hit five locations, the one person that used to calibrate and do the trainings and do your QC—they’re at full capacity,” she said. “That’s where tech comes in. The remote viewing of what’s actually happening allows them to take a step back” while still keeping an eye on quality at each shop.

Choose Your ‘Grown-Up’ Tools Wisely

Atkinson advised focusing on the parts of the tech stack that yield the biggest impact and avoiding obsession with competitors’ tools. “A lot of companies when they start succeeding get a momentary bit of FOMO,” he said.

His advice: “Sometimes if it’s working, it’s working. When you’re running into actual line production problems, then focus on a place and put in that investment.”

These learnings are just a sample of what Atkinson and Lozada shared during the live session. The two also delved into best practices for onboarding, integrating different tools, smartly adding new machinery in a roastery, and more.

To see the full discussion, you can access the full replay of the live session here.