A COFFEE BEAN GRINDING APPARATUS

There is disclosed herein a coffee bean grinding apparatus including: a transmitter for emitting a signal; a receiver for receiving at least a portion of the signal; a hopper for containing coffee beans, wherein at least a portion of the coffee beans contained by the hopper is located between the transmitter and receiver; a grinding mechanism for grinding coffee beans fed by the hopper; and a controller, in electrical communication with the transmitter, the receiver and the grinding mechanism, configured to: receive, from the receiver, a measurement indicative of a proportion of the signal received from the transmitter; determine, based on the measurement, whether the hopper contains at least a threshold amount of coffee beans; and in response to determining that the hopper contains less than the threshold amount of coffee beans, perform one or more detection functions.