This S’pore duo launched a local kopi vending machine—one yr in, it’s expanded to 70 locations

Kopi is becoming more expensive, so they turned to vending machines to make it more accessible

Singapore has a rich and saturated coffee scene, from heritage brands like Killiney to local aesthetic cafes. But for Leow Jun Heng and Loh Jian Yuan, the good ol’ fashioned cup of kopi is their go-to caffeine fix.

The duo first met in early 2024 through common friends and bonded over their love for the beverage, but soon came to realise how the COVID-19 pandemic had increased the operating costs of businesses, including Singapore’s kopitiams, making a good cup of kopi less accessible.

“I think getting a consistent cup of kopi is getting harder. The pandemic accelerated it, with some areas stopping operations,” lamented Jun Heng.

Determined to make it more accessible, the duo decided to explore vending machines as a solution. Drawing on Jun Heng’s three years of experience in the vending machine space and Jian Yuan’s self-taught barista skills, they launched Kopi Near Me, a kopi vending machine business that has expanded to 70 locations across the island within just one year.

Vulcan Post sat down with the duo to learn how they differ from other vending machine brands and what their recipe for success is.

Brewing kopi consistently

Currently, Kopi Near Me’s vending machines serve three hot drink options: Kopi, Kopi-C, and Kopi-O. Customers can also customise the drink to be thicker (gao), less sweet (siew dai), or without sugar (kosong), which ranges from S$1.10 to S$1.70 depending on location.

While coffee vending machines are not a new concept, they typically offer Western-style coffee options. Jun Heng and Jian Yuan believed that having localised offerings is more appreciated by consumers in Singapore, and follows the evolution of the vending machine industry.

“It’s no longer the very standard prepackaged food. Nowadays, vending machines are trying to push the limits of what’s actually possible to be served,” explained Jun Heng.

But achieving the right taste and consistency for their kopi proved challenging. Different vending machine models have varying calibrations and systems, which made standardising recipes tricky.

Hence, to test their concept, the duo decided to purchase 10 different vending machines, which required a S$200,000 upfront commitment.

“If it were anything less, then we might not be giving it a fair chance to succeed, whether it is a machine or location-specific issue,” shared Jian Yuan, adding that the move made the operation asset-heavy.

Jun Heng and Jian Yuan also took the time to figure out the “Golden Ratio” for their kopi, which I eventually learned wasn’t in relation to specific numbers, but is used as a way to describe how the business tunes its recipe rather precisely, down to the gram, to ensure consistency across all their vending machines.

Small changes can cause coffee to taste different. Even in kopitiams, where the same coffee powder and recipe are used, a slight variation in how it’s brewed can lead to noticeable differences in flavour. That’s why the duo pays such close attention to precision.

Growing their fleet with new solutions

Jun Heng and Jian Yuan took approximately nine months to perfect their recipe and source the right beans from local suppliers. Eventually, in Oct 2024, the duo successfully deployed their first vending machine at Sunshine Plaza.

Just a year after its launch, Kopi Near Me now operates over 37 machines across the island.

Jun Heng explained that selecting locations involves both strategy and experimentation. Their core focus is on areas with frequent vending machine users, such as office buildings and industrial zones, while their secondary target includes more niche audiences, like round-the-clock hospital staff and personnel at army bases.

This approach also helps offset downtime. “During holiday periods, locations that are in the office or industrial areas would do poorer, but our deployments, for example, at Tanah Merrah Ferry Terminal, where people are traveling to Batam or Bintan, then sales there are doing extremely well.”

So far, take-up for Kopi Near Me’s offerings has been promising. “Until today, I think we have crossed about a quarter of a million cups of coffee served,” shared Jun Heng, adding that the company has generated monthly revenues of approximately S$80,000 to S$90,000 over the past two months.

The business has even received multiple enquiries from establishments looking to offer their coffee in office pantries—but the vending machines had to be adapted, as these firms often lack the space or resources for a traditional coffee setup.

This led to the launch of tabletop machines in Mar, which are smaller, more portable versions of Kopi Near Me’s vending machines. The company has deployed 33 of them, bringing the total number of vending machines it operates to 70.

Introducing these machines allowed the business to increase the number of touchpoints and use cases, which has also helped diversify its revenue streams and opened the doors to partnership opportunities with multiple companies.

Among its partners are Japanese drugstore giant Welcia, Singaporean health food chain Grains & Co, and Chinese fast food buffet brand Hundred Grains.

Keeping things measured as it grows

While the pair has expressed ambitions to increase the total number of touchpoints to 300 by 2026 and introduce more local drinks such as Teh and iced options, they are also adopting a more pragmatic approach to ensure Kopi Near Me’s long-term sustainability.

Specialised vending machine businesses, such as Kopi Near Me, require resilient and well-developed systems to ensure a consistent supply of ingredients, which is a more complex operation compared to stocking canned drinks and packaged food. As such, the company will focus on strengthening its workflows and team structure to support the business’s growth.

With more businesses emerging with their own vending machines, customer expectations have been raised, and it has pushed them to introduce more innovative yet convenient and fresh F&B options. The barrier for the pair right now is getting the economics right, but to Jun Heng and Jian Yuan, it’s a challenge they are itching to tackle.

• Learn more about Kopi Near Me here.
• Read more stories we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Also Read: Amid S’pore’s tough food scene, this vending biz has 120+ machines & offers a new F&B alternative

Featured Image Credit: Kopi Near Me