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About
LCI
What is LCI?
The London Cappuccino Index (LCI) is the average price of a cup of cappuccino recorded across participating coffee shop chains in London during the last financial quarter*.
How is the index
calculated?
You may be surprised, but simply walking into one of the branches of each coffee shop participating in the index every quarter and recording the price - either by purchasing a cup of cappuccino or looking at the menu - is all it takes.
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The prices are generally displayed in three ways: a single-size price (e.g., Pret), offering small and medium options, or presenting three (or more) prices for different sizes of cappuccino. For one or three displayed prices, we essentially select the median. However, in the case of two or four available prices, we calculate the arithmetic mean (an average).
Further questions and answers
There seems to be a missing coffee shop chain, why is it not part of the index?
It is possible that a chain is missed, I am just a human after all, tracking this index by myself. Please email me missed brands using contact below. Also please bear in mind that not all coffee shops are eligible.
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Can I use this data? Is the data free?
Yes, it is free to use, but please credit this website as a source. A full data Excel download is also available below.
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Are there any disclosures that visitors should be aware of?
There is absolutely no paid promotion of any brands here. We receive no money or free coffee for publishing prices, nor do we have any conflicts of interest. The index is not manipulated in any way.
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Are the prices consistent across the branches of the same coffee shop chains? If not, what happens then?
Good question. An example of inconsistency is Cafe Nero's higher prices at Heathrow Airport terminals. However, of course, the price mentioned in the index source data is not going to be the one from Heathrow, so I use common sense in such cases and aim to collect prices from city centres.
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Why make this index and what is the purpose of it?
Honestly? Just for fun. I am not sure if there is any benefit to knowing the average price of cappuccino in London or if this index can be used in any way, it is just there in case you are interested.
The full data can be useful if you are interested in historical prices of cappuccinos from well known coffee shops. To my knowledge this is only place on the internet that you can find such data.
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I will mention, however, that in my experience of tracking prices, it has been very consistent with UK food inflation index.
*Please refer to the "How is this index calculated?" section for a detailed explanation. Identifying eligible coffee chains to participate in the index is a subjective matter. However, a general method of determining whether an establishment qualifies as a "coffee shop chain" is by searching "coffee shop" on Google Maps, scanning the results, and only including those with more than two branches across London, UK. There are some notable exceptions, such as Pret A Manger, which is a café. However, given its significant influence as a seller of cappuccinos in its stores, I believe its pricing should impact the index.