Friend of mine came over last week and while talking decided to try out a new brand of flavored coffee I received in a gift basket. We were both impressed with the flavor and started thinking up "what if" scenarios. Two days later we invited 4 other girls over for coffee (serving the same flavor) and asked if they liked it well enough to buy. All answered yes which brought us to the point of thinking about starting a home based flavored coffee business. One of the girls thought of adding dry mix packets for cakes, breads and pies.

My questions are:
1. Does anyone know where to buy coffee and dry-mix wholesale?
2. If you were doing this -- how would you package it?
3. Any other thoughts you feel would be helpful

Thanks,
Patsy in NC

Home sales are a great way to get products out for sale. Pampered Chef works, Avon works, Mary Kay works, etc. I cannot help you elaborate on this thought process, as I have little to no experience with anything other than being a purchaser at home-parties. But, it's a workable idea.

To answer the rest of your questions (including some you haven't considered)...

We just got into selling coffee because our customers started asking for the ingredients we use in our sauces.

Our coffee is fair trade organic, so it tastes infinitely better than a simple flavored coffee.

For coffee... as you're discovering, it pays to be different. Go to TransFair and look at their list of importers and roasters... If you're going to really do something like this, why not use Fair Trade coffee? We hooked up with Oxfam's Equitas for coffee and have been quite pleased with it. Since you have a roaster already chosen, ask him if you can use fair trade organic beans. Trust me on this, you'll appreciate the quality.

Your roaster will be able to sell you your coffee in bean form which you will then have to grind in order to offer it for sale to your customers. With my tripartite agreement with Equitas, I could sell you the coffee for your project, packed in your choice of size bag and ingredients required to flavour the coffee, with your own label, etc. and this I could do quite easily. BUT one of the things you will want to be aware of is the fact that coffee, once ground, really only has a shelf life of one week. Vacuum packing extends that life indefinitely, but I doubt that you'll be able to start out with this ability; it is extremely expensive.

For our commercial customers who want ground coffee, we grind fresh and deliver once per week. For our retail customers, we simply sell the Equitas pre ground coffees, they are in foil bags and have a shelf-life of three months. For our commercial customers who have bean grinders in their machines, we sell the beans.

French roasting by the way, really is an artistic way of saying "burnt beans", they use it because it extends the life of beans even longer than regularly roasted coffee.

Further thoughts you will need to consider, different machines require different grinds. Your grinder will need to accommodate that desire.

Minimum order for a co-pack such as you describe, is fine, assuming the $500 is presold or will be sold within a day or so of you placing the order. Tricky business that.

You might want to try buying larger bags of the coffee you intend to sell, break it up into sample size packages (standard is 2oz) and give those to people you want as your customers... take orders and when you have enough, then place your order with the roaster.

As for the cake mixes, you can get bulk dry cake mixes and package them yourself at bulk stores, ask the vendor for the ingredients list so that you can package them.

Finally, Julia suggest that you don't simply take the roaster's brand and put your label on it. I'm not quite sure what she means by this, but I want to address it.

Private labeling means buying a winning recipe, packing it under your label and selling it. It is a lot less expensive than developing your own secret recipe and hiring a co-packer to package that for you.

Here's what you will run into in general terms as far as a co-pack vs a private label goes...

The co-packer will ask for a non-refundable recipe development of X$ (some are as low as $500. Some are as high as $5,000). You will OWN the recipe, they will not resell it to another customer. You will be expected to sign off on the recipe and there will be a certain amount of product that you will be expected to purchase in the initial run and in each subsequent run. You will, though, have room for larger margins than with a private label.

With a private label, the co-packer (sometimes the roaster, sometimes his co-packer) will put your label on his product, you will pay for the label, the product, the jars, his labor. You will have a minimum order (ours for a private label of our big fire is $100 label layout and minimum 1 jar) ranging anywhere from a small amount to a larger amount... often it is limited to at least one batch.

With the former, you are able to take your recipe and walk away from the co-packer if you are unhappy with him or her and find another co-packer to make your product. With a private label, you are stuck with that maker. If you want someone else, you have to change your recipe.

A lot of products on the market, and many would be surprised at how many, are private labels. So, the next time you taste something and you think that it tastes an awful lot like X brand... think, there is a great possibility that it might be.

All that said.

Whatever you do... DO NOT sign any contracts or sales deals with this co-packer/roaster until you have shopped around and spoken to at least a half-dozen or more different co-packers and are satisfied that this one is the best one for your project.

Feel free to ask me any co-pack or private label questions you might have. Short of it being a proprietary response, I'm game to answer.

T

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!

Tina,
Thanks for your detailed email with loads of good information. The coffee roaster we are talking with is about 15 miles from me (easy for pickup instead of shipping charges) and wholesales flavored, single origin and certified organic. They are the roaster for many restaurants around here serving coffee under their restaurant name. I pick up the already packaged product to affix my label. There is no signed agreement -- we simply purchase wholesale.

Have looked on line and see several people selling dry mix goodies in what looks like just a baggie with a label. Would like to find someone will to (and have a food licensed kitchen) to wholesale to me.

Checked out your website and like the appearance, mind telling me what shopping cart you are using. The review section is a great addition. Did check out the cart and it has list at the top of the cart:

You may want to add some instructions for using the shopping cart here. (defined in includes/languages/english/shopping_cart.php)

Was thinking that slipped by you. I am not a fan of .php

Thanks for your help,
Patsy

Hi Patsy,

Thanks for the note about my shopping cart, it is Zen Cart. I will add the instructions, yes it slipped by me... I had no idea that it was there.

Check the bulk grocery stores. I have seen cake mix there. The right store will tell you where you can buy it by the container, if need be. By the same token, a little research and you might be able to find out how to make them yourself, from scratch. (much higher profit margins, btw).

One final comment on the coffee; it sounds like you've got a good project going. Using his coffee and your label, unless you get registered in a tri-partite agreement with TransFair USA (I assume you are in the States), you will not be able to use the Fair Trade label. Second, unless you yourself are organic certified, you will lose the ability to use the organic certified label. (You can list both these things in the ingredients list, you just cannot put them on the main label plate.)

What you have described though, is someone (the supplier) washing his hands of whatever you do with the coffee once he's sold you $500 worth... That is not a private label sale; that is you repacking. (I will elaborate.) If your supplier is putting the label onto the packages for you, that's what we call private labelling; if his name and address or the words "packaged for" and your info, isn't on the label, then you might as well have been the roaster in the eyes of the government food agencies. Fines from the FDA start at $150K.

I think also that you are going to have to have a chat with the food agency, I believe from what I have read that there are two levels for anyone in the States, County and State, they will tell you what the rules are governing you buying something wholesale and then relabeling it. If you cross the border with even one order, you will have to conform to FDA as well and take my word for this, that's a whole nother beastie!

Send me an email off-list, I can hook you up with a couple of food-related discussion boards that will be even more useful to you. tbrooks at peppermaster.com

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!

You can make a few baskets and give them to business around your area as free gifts. Let them know you can provide "corporate" discounts so they can provide them as gifts to their employees.

Ocha

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You can look online for recipes and make these yourself. They will have recipes for rubs, cakes, cookies, teas, coffees, seasonings, etc. This would help keep your cost down and allow you to make a nice profit. I would suggest when you prepare these to package them nicely and add a recipe card to them. This is a great home based direct selling business, you could start and have hundreds of reps. I know a little about this if you want to chat about it, just email me. Hope this helps!

Kim Garrett
Reflections Cleaning Service
reflectionscleaningservice07@yahoo.com