Listen to the Coffee Think Tank Podcast, a show about trends, ideas, and innovations in coffee, on: Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
And a big thanks to this season’s sponsor, SumUp, a modern point of sale and loyalty system for cafes.
Great coffee is more widely available than ever, and roasters can no longer rely solely on quality to drive business growth — so they must find ways to differentiate.
“When everyone’s special, no one’s special,” says Raina Roberts, business development director at Partners Coffee, a roastery and wholesaler based in Brooklyn, New York.
Roberts oversees over 250 wholesale, distributor, and grocery partners, and is helpingPartners Coffee expand beyond the Northeast. Her business customers have increasingly higher expectations of the roasters they work with, and Roberts has a lot of experience navigating what it takes to stand out in B2B channels and how to play the ever-convoluted grocery game.
The work of Roberts and her team is paying off: Partners Coffee started with a flagship store in Brooklyn in 2012; now, you can find Partners Coffee in grocery stores across the Northwest and Midwest, and partner cafes around the country.
In this episode of the Coffee Think Tank Podcast, we explore what it takes to break into grocery chains, the hidden costs in grocery you don’t want to overlook, how to support new store rollouts across different regions, and how to compete for wholesale accounts when you’re not local.
What You’ll Learn
How Partners Coffee expanded from their Northeast niche into Midwest grocery chains
The economics and logistics behind specialty coffee’s presence in grocery stores
Why grocery partnerships can take up to a year to establish before products hit shelves
How to calculate cost of goods for grocery channels to ensure profitability
The hidden fees and disputes that can erode margins in retail partnerships
How Partners Coffee balances their Brooklyn identity with broader market appeal
Winning wholesale clients when you aren’t local
The process of developing accessible specialty products like cold brew pouches and instant coffee
How direct-to-consumer sales data can demonstrate market potential to potential grocery partners in new regions
Key Takeaways
Making It In Grocery is a Complex Dance
Grocery distribution is far more complicated than simply getting products on shelves. Roberts went through the maze of hidden charges, coded chargeback reports, and potential disputes with grocers that roasters have to learn to navigate.
Roberts had no shortage of examples of hiccups: “You didn’t label something correctly. Maybe someone accidentally put the wrong SKU into a different case box. You could have multiple SKUs on one palette. Some distributors are very particular about how they receive their items.” These little infractions can result in grocery stores issuing chargebacks (and thus lost margin) because distributors claim “you made our team do extra work.”
Beyond disputes, there are promotional costs, new item fees when entering distribution centers, and obscure charges that aren’t intuitively understandable. “When you misstep on something, they consider that a disputed charge,” Roberts said.
She’s learned that keeping meticulous records is essential: “Keep your receipts is my main feedback.”
DTC Data Can Power Regional Expansion
Partners Coffee leverages their direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce sales data to target new markets. When approaching buyers in new regions, Roberts likes to use their DTC sales metrics as “proof of concept that we’re wanted in your region.”
This data-driven pitch provides compelling evidence that helps grocery buyers overcome their risk aversion of adding a new product to their shelves. It shows those grocery buyers that, while Partners Coffee is a Brooklyn-based company, they have a track record of earning attention and customers outside of their immediate market.
Roberts also uses DTC data to support new product launches in grocery stores. Their cold brew pouches were developed in response to consumer demand for simpler brewing methods, and their popularity in DTC ecommerce channel provided evidence that retail placements could be similarly successful.
Partners Coffee goes beyond a typical transactional approach to wholesale by establishing regular, strategic touchpoints with their accounts.. “We do like a monthly newsletter… We also do additional ‘hey, try this on us’ kind of codes… We’ll send recipes out,” says Roberts. These regular connections help maintain relationships when face-to-face visits aren’t possible.
Roberts says this approach reflects a deeper philosophy about how Partners approaches business relationships. “It’s not about selling product or getting money but being like, ‘hey, this is something cool in the coffee world,'” she said. Partners works to position themselves as a resource, rather than just a vendor, by adding value proactively.
Note: transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors.
Garrett Oden (00:01.356) Reina, welcome to the Coffee Think Tank podcast. Raina Roberts (00:04.983) Thank you for having me, I’m really excited for this. Garrett Oden (00:07.854) Yeah, absolutely. So you’re somebody I’ve wanted to talk to, you’re in a role that I think is really interesting. You know, we run this program called Roaster Link, which is a matchmaking program for roasters and wholesale buyers. And we hear from the roasters we partner with all the time that the process of doing business development is changing. And not that long ago, it was a lot easier to stand out. You know, it was, people would try your coffee and say, wow, this is really different. And you know, just the sales process was a little bit smoother because you could stand on the quality of your coffee. And that’s getting harder to do because quality coffee is more available than it’s ever been. And there’s like price disruptions, there’s, you know, all sorts, lots of competition. So, you know, I think this is changing a lot and I’m so fascinated to hear how this is working for you in your role at Partners Coffee. and what you see working and the kind of things you see coming up trends wise moving forward in the industry. Raina Roberts (01:10.933) Yeah, I mean, I feel like I’ve been saying recently to people because everyone’s doing such a phenomenal job with their coffee and in their sourcing practices and everything that goes into it. That’s almost like when everyone’s special, no one’s special, which is great for us in the industry to be able to go anywhere and pretty much enjoy a really awesome cup of coffee. But when you’re looking at expanding your footprint or like getting your specific brand into something. You’re struggling against the fact that like we’re all special. What differentiates you? And it’s definitely feels like a battleground. sometimes unfortunately of You’re kind of battling against a bunch of different things not even just each other but also the space available which is an Interesting thing to kind of take into effect like when people are looking at their planograms and be like, we’re having a category review That could get cancelled That can change Garrett Oden (02:06.158) Hmm. Raina Roberts (02:20.254) and all the work you’ve done is for naught. But… I mean, we’ve definitely tried to put in plan some really strategic moves of how we’re putting our product forward to really make buyers interested in taking us up, especially because we’ve had such a really strong footprint in the Northeast. So doing any type of expansion for us has been like proof of concept. Can we do what we’re doing in the Northeast in a different region as successfully where we’re not having our own cafes or as many wholesale accounts and things like that. Garrett Oden (03:02.414) I’m so eager to ask you about this transition, but let’s do our due diligence first. I want to ask about you. You have a lot of experience in different roles in your coffee journey. Can you give us a sense for what that’s been like for you and how you’ve ended up where you are now? Raina Roberts (03:18.326) So I started in coffee in 2013 and it was this kind of drive to learn everything about coffee. Like that was my… I was leaving an HR job and I was like, I wanna own a coffee shop and I wanna know everything about coffee. So for me, it was one of those like transitional periods where I started out as a barista, became a manager. I moved into doing quality control for the company. So doing a little bit of roasting and doing all the QC work in all of our cafes. Moved into education after that, which I was there for a period of time that. I really enjoyed we were doing training for like our wholesale customers, people off the street, you know, our own cafes as well. And then COVID hit and everything changed. And there wasn’t going to be any type of in person training or anything like that. So I was given the opportunity to essentially do a work from home job, because they’re like, here’s a computer, we want you to still be working for the company. So I started doing customer service and doing kind of order fulfillment and things like that remotely. And then that kind of has transitioned my role currently because I’ve had so many different hands in different aspects where I started doing supply chain and logistics for the company. So a lot of like new product development, making sure we don’t run out of bags. those things that make the wheels keep running. And then I transitioned into my current role as a director of business development overseeing our wholesale in distro so that we can continue using like the things I’ve learned along the way for growth and retention. So for me, it’s just always been this like. Raina Roberts (05:12.394) I know there’s the idea of like a jack of all trades, master of none, but for me, I’ve always wanted to be a master of some so that I can always be in a room with people that are smarter than me and know so much about the industry and I can follow along and also almost like that meme like behavior of like the equations going on when you’re thinking. Like for me, it’s using the information I’m gathering from the rest of our team to like figure out how can I put this Garrett Oden (05:19.406) Ha Raina Roberts (05:42.311) into different aspects, whether or not it’s towards the wholesale, whether or not it’s just to the overall business, how am I transitioning things, and how I can kind of move forward. So that’s kind of the a lot of different roles, with purpose for me, and I think also kind of helpful for the company as well to have someone with, you know, a background that knows everything. Garrett Oden (06:08.75) Absolutely. So now you’re the business development director and I found that job description to include different elements based on the company. So what falls on your plate and what does not? Raina Roberts (06:22.71) So for me, it is overall wholesale growth and how we’re maintaining them. I mean, we have a little over like 250 wholesale accounts that we’re managing. So it’s definitely a lot of different people and you want to make sure that they’re feeling heard and things are getting resolved and everything’s being handled in a timely manner for those people who are in the thick of it in their cafes being like, I need an issue resolved. And then for me as well as looking at our distro and growing how we are outside of the Northeast. So I’ve been working with brokerage and managing that relationship as well. So it’s a little bit of a couple different hats, I would say. Those are the two high level things that I’m primarily doing outside of like other random things, I guess. Garrett Oden (07:15.726) So when you say distro, do you mean working with the distributor that you have on the, you know, you’re partnered with? Raina Roberts (07:23.016) Yes, so making sure in regards to like national distribution, even the independent ones that like the smaller ones that we’re working with, I’m managing that relationship in regards to like roadmap planning, promotions, things of that idea. And also just making sure product is available. So that’s also like kind of cross-departmentally. Like I’m working with like our marketing team where we’re supporting there. I’m working with our operations team to make sure like fulfillment is on schedule. All the like issues and disputes that you get and charge backs. Like I’m doing that. Garrett Oden (07:47.278) Yeah. Garrett Oden (08:03.5) dear, you have a stressful job, then that’s a lot to deal with. Okay. Raina Roberts (08:07.88) It’s stressful but fun. I would, in a weird way. Like it hits a part of my like brain space that I, everyone makes fun of me because they’re like, all the numbers just live in your head. I’m like, yeah. Like you, anyone from our team will be like, how much does this cost? be like, this. Garrett Oden (08:27.09) I’m always, you you hear this all the time from most of us who are just getting into working in grocery or with a distributor and they’re like, oh my goodness, there’s like, 10 different kinds of fees basically, you know, it’s just endless arrangements of how these work and yeah, it seems like a lot to deal with. Raina Roberts (08:46.198) It is, especially if they come in code. Garrett Oden (08:49.422) Yeah. Raina Roberts (08:51.53) And you’re like, what does this code mean? So those are always the fun ones. Some of the other distributors we work with, it kind of varies, I would say, with the distributor working with of how those type of disputes work. Some are very transparent and will be like, hey, here’s a line code. This is exactly what maybe you were like, there was a delay in the shipment or something like that. So X amount is being taken off. Garrett Oden (09:16.259) Hmm. Raina Roberts (09:19.88) Either I have to go into dispute and be like, absolutely not. I have receipts, timeline, all of those fun stuff to be like, this is not actually the thing. That would be keep your receipts is my main feedback I would give to anyone that is starting out to make sure you’re setting up yourself operationally to be successful, to be able to go back to someone and be like, no, that’s not a hundred percent. Garrett Oden (09:50.68) keep your receipts wise advice there. So you have a role that’s very much, it’s like part sales, part account management, part logistics. What about team? Do you have like a team of people that you’re directing? What’s the structure of that look like when you’re having other people assist with all that? Raina Roberts (09:51.988) Yes. Raina Roberts (10:07.894) So something that’s fun that people with partners typically seem to think that we’re this massive company and we’re not. We’re a small but mighty team is what I like to always say. So I have our customer experience manager. who I directly manage and she helps me with the like she does all the fulfillments and making sure customers are being handled in an appropriate timeline things of that nature and that’s the main person that I’m managing. That’s my team. But we do have essentially across the board like different head of departments. So we all are kind of like making sure we’re in. really good communication to make sure everything’s rolling out as successfully. I guess where it seems we are a lot bigger than we are, where we have like our VP of digital. So like I’ll work with him and his marketing team for rollouts to make sure we have a game plan in place. And then he has his team that he’ll kind of be like, cool, we’re going to do X, Y, and Z. And then our ops director who That’s like he handles all the fulfillment, his team, but for me personally, it is me and one other person and we are doing it. Garrett Oden (11:33.326) That’s a lot of accounts to manage and keep track of with such a small number of people. Raina Roberts (11:38.657) Well, we also have a sales team as well. like there are accounts that have dedicated sales reps that are their account managers that brought them on. I do help oversee the sales team, but I wouldn’t say they directly report to me. Garrett Oden (11:46.446) Hmm. Raina Roberts (11:56.919) I just like give them a lot of information like I will be we have weekly meetings for me to be like hey here’s like the state of the business here’s your accounts like here’s what’s going on here’s like new product offerings things that for you guys to know about like what’s changing in the market so we have those kinds of like meetings as well but they are their own little ship I guess comparatively Garrett Oden (12:22.638) Gotcha, okay. So let’s see, you one of these news pieces that’s come out about partners is you’re rolling out in fresh time market, which I think is like 70 or so locations in the Midwest. And this move westward is new for partners, but grocery is not. So I’m curious, what’s your take on what it’s like to be in grocery, first of all, because that’s different. And then also, to move into areas that are new to you. What’s that process been like? Raina Roberts (12:57.716) I mean, yeah, we’ve been with Whole Foods in the Northeast for a really long time. And it’s been a very successful partnership. Where I would say they’ve told us that we’re the number one local roaster that they have. which has been really great feedback to hear from the Whole Foods team. And just we can see that by the volume and numbers that we’re moving. I mean, working with grocery in a distributor level versus way back in the day, we actually used to ship just to Whole Foods stores. The amount of labor and packaging to ship directly to each store is abysmal. until they transitioned to be like, hey, it has to go through Distro, no more shipping this via UPS, like we need this to go through here, actually ended up being a lot more successful for our ops team to be able to like move volume out at a easier rate. And I mean, for us, that success has been like very much like couple years going year over year, very much like it maintains or goes higher. and we kind of like have thought about how we’ve almost cornered ourselves to like one region. and why when we’re looking at especially like our D to C numbers, like it’s not just Northeast. We’re seeing a lot of people wanting partners outside of the Northeast region. And that’s kind of a little bit of like our strategic plan where we’re, when you’re talking to a new region or a new grocery chain that I’m like, I have proof of concept. Raina Roberts (14:48.95) proof of concept that I can do this on a large scale, because they need that, and then proof of concept that we’re wanted in your region. So it’s like helpful to have both of that information when I’m putting that forward to like transition outside of New York. Garrett Oden (15:07.128) What’s the better selling proposition? We’re number one in Whole Foods or we have direct to consumer sales in your region? Raina Roberts (15:15.216) I would say when I’ve talked to and done all of my like different pitch calls, the Whole Foods information is the most prevalent. But it is like, like that would be like number one and then afterwards they’re like, well, it’s good to know that we’re also like a region of interest because that means I would just say it’s like just second. Garrett Oden (15:38.766) Yeah, because you can’t just show up in a grocery store and then have sales all of sudden. You have to put in some work to develop that demand. So have you all done more of that? did the demand already exist and there wasn’t too much effort on your part to nurture that? What that look like? Raina Roberts (15:57.345) I mean, fresh time is relatively new. Like it just happened this month. So for us, we also have put forward a pretty strong like marketing strategy to be able to support movement of volume velocity off shelf in regards to like different trigger points that we can hit based on SMS or email campaigns that we can use from those specific regions. We also have a bunch of different like content creation things like that that we’re trying to kind of bolster the information of like being like hey, we’re at fresh time Go forth and like check us out I’ve even had our like sales team be like hey like start hitting up people in the Midwest to be like let’s start trying to promote getting you know More wholesale accounts as well out in the Midwest because this is almost like a full circle help when you have your brand it kind of emerging in a different region, not just like in grocery, but potentially in a wholesale in like someone’s cafe next door. Like those are where you’re going to kind of find like people are like, I didn’t really know about partners, but now I kind of tried it, love it. Like I’ll buy it when I’m next time I’m at Fresh Time. Garrett Oden (17:19.822) So if you have a direct-to-consumer customer in Ohio, are you sending them the marketing and saying, go to Fresh Time Market? Do you want them to go buy that bag from the grocery store versus buying from you directly? Raina Roberts (17:32.999) it’s kind of a either or like for us because even if like someone at fresh time discovers us and then moves into d to c customer because they’re like i don’t always want to go to the grocery store i mean i try to avoid the grocery store at the best of times in my personal life so i mean it kind of is more about a little bit of like that combo of like word of mouth a little bit of like campaigning and also just kind of I guess it’s it’s not we would let people know for sure based on those marketing campaigns that’s available at fresh time whether or not they continue being subscribers or they continue that is everyone’s personal journey I guess of what they want to do but it is helpful just in getting the brand recognition out and about and people knowing about us Garrett Oden (18:30.424) Yeah, yeah. Are y’all gonna be in stores doing sampling and restocking shelves and how physically present is the partner’s team gonna be? Raina Roberts (18:40.598) So we’ve discussed about that. That is something that we are contemplating about doing. There is a little bit of that kind of limitation because most of our, you know. company is based in New York. So that probably will be based on just like how we’re looking for performance also when they allow it, like making sure it’s also in a whole other realm of like who’s already on deck. Some things are planned six months in advance, even some like promotions and like things like that you, might want to launch, but I can’t do any type of on shelf promotion. ocean until like six months so you’ve got a little bit of a waiting time sometimes Garrett Oden (19:30.712) Well, apparently they let Mr. Beast just walk into a Walmart and restock shelves like whenever he just shows up with his chocolate bars or whatever. So, wasn’t sure if that’s, if he’s got special privileges or if the expectation is that you’re there to assist, you know. Raina Roberts (19:45.003) I mean, I wouldn’t say, I think that if I went to a grocery shelf and just started being like, I’m just gonna put this, I think especially thinking from New York standards, someone would be like, who are you? What are you doing here? Garrett Oden (20:02.695) yeah, I probably don’t recommend that. I think that’s not one of the things that you do first, ask for permission later. Raina Roberts (20:08.372) I mean, if you’re working with a merchandiser, they will like kind of check to make sure there’s no voids and things like that. Like there’s no holes of where you should be placed. And they’re at least more geared to talking to the people that are in the actual store to be like, hey, like maybe you need to order more. Like we’re noticing this is empty and that’s just a different way that feels a little bit more. right than getting into someone’s space. Garrett Oden (20:36.404) Probably so. Garrett Oden (20:40.386) I’m curious to ask you about this because I worked with a marketing client a few years ago that’s a tool for tracking your out of stocks and voids and chargebacks and all the things, shipping delays, whatever. And I didn’t realize that there’s not always a lot of visibility into where you have stock, where you don’t. And I’m curious, has that been something I’ve had to encounter or what’s that look like for you all? Raina Roberts (21:06.058) would say that Whole Foods is really good about the transparency on that. It’s super helpful. I think it also, it matters what kind of distributor, broker, or merchandiser that you’re working with to get that transparency. It is a kind of pay-to-win scenario in certain cases, it feels like, to get that information. I mean, even right now, I… the transparency of like working with like a national distributor who doesn’t necessarily handle, you know, what’s on shelf, I can say, hey, all these locations have ordered product, but can I confirm it’s on shelf? I can’t. Garrett Oden (21:52.248) Yep, yeah. Raina Roberts (21:53.117) And that’s a little bit of the like, discrepancy I find that I wish was a little bit more transparent and would make it easier for some planning and things like that. So you kind of have to pull different levers to get that information, unfortunately, it feels like. And that’s the main thing with grocery that can be you’re paying a lot, I feel like, to be successful at grocery. Garrett Oden (22:13.87) A few years ago somebody showed me, yeah, yeah. Garrett Oden (22:23.296) A few years ago, I had somebody show me what their report looked like from Target and their report from somewhere else. I can’t remember some other store and they work just completely different. All the codes, like, you know, it’s not written in plain English, like where you have inventory, if it’s on the shelf, you know, what all these different charges are for. And it just seemed like a total nightmare to try to, you know, combine this data and like really get a sense for grocery as like a whole channel for you, you know, because just trying to make sense of each individual store. let alone cleaning and putting that data together was just seemed like a nightmare. Raina Roberts (22:59.374) yeah, and I mean, it’s also a matter of like even managing like promotions and like how that happens and getting that actual information about like what volume move from your promotion. It really feels like you’re like fine going through with a fine-tooth comb to like try to figure out like what information is not for the faint of heart. Garrett Oden (23:19.416) Ha ha ha. Raina Roberts (23:20.15) would be my, as I’ve been learning that I do feel constantly like I’m looking at all these different reports, I’m comparing and contrasting and making sure like we’re all good, but it is, there is effort, 100 % behind it. Garrett Oden (23:34.636) Yeah. Do you try to put all that into one central place so you you have like your history going back and is there a tool or any sort of process used to to make sense of that data? Raina Roberts (23:46.807) to be honest, I’m using right now like very bare bones, like Excel docs, like to try to keep that information. but I would say there’s definitely other like apps, like we’ve, I feel like the past two months I’ve been talking to so many people with different apps and things like that. just so that when we eventually go and grow even larger, I have something in the bank to be like, hey, how do I make my life a little bit easier? Because I can manage what I can right now. But eventually as we scale, there’s probably going to be points where I am but one human that I might need some assistance or help. So that’s kind of like, I haven’t found anything 100%. I want to be like, Garrett Oden (24:29.614) Yeah. Raina Roberts (24:40.178) Yes, I’ve trialed and said like this would be the thing to go to, but they’re definitely different brands we’ve talked to that I’m interested to see when we scale how applicable they will be. Garrett Oden (24:57.818) Yeah. Okay. What’s the sales process look like for grocery? Chris, is this like a three month process? Is this a year long process? What’s your experience been? Raina Roberts (25:08.086) So it varies, but it can be up to a year or more, to be honest. Mainly because you’re also waiting, some people have open reviews, meaning you can put in your product whenever your heart desires and it doesn’t matter. Or you have category reviews and then they’ll send out like a schedule to be like, hey, we’re reviewing coffee specifically in May. And at that point then you’ve got like, maybe a month to two months, like you have found out that the review’s coming. It also varies their process too, like sometimes it’s like, hey, send a pitch deck and then we’ll let you know we wanna have a meeting or. I’ve also been just being like, we’re having a meeting and I’m like, great, now it’s a pitch. So I’ve always had to just be like prepared for whatever system is in place. But then from there, you’re then going from, I did my pitch, maybe they’re deciding for six months in the future. Garrett Oden (25:57.582) Ha ha ha ha. Raina Roberts (26:16.222) And then from six months in the future, then it’s about like, when is this actually going to be placed on shelf? Could be another four months. It depends on how big of a location it is too for them to roll out on shelf to, I mean, with fresh time 70 locations. It’s not like me rolling out at my three retail cafes. know what I want to roll out for like a single origin coffee. That seems so much simpler than doing that across like four different SKUs and it’s not just our brand, they’re maybe doing a whole restock and reshelving. So that can be, I would say, year process. Like I’m pretty sure, yeah, Fresh Time was a year of my life, it feels like. Garrett Oden (27:07.148) Yeah. So this has all been happening in the midst of all this like tariff craziness and price, you know, roller coaster. How does that change the process? know, is that something that they worry about? Are they thinking, asking you what you’re going to do? What do you say to them when they’re looking at the cost disruptions? Raina Roberts (27:27.646) So typically I would say when you’re looking at specialty coffee, you are looking at the natural grocery chains, like you’re not doing conventional because you’re just not going to perform well on shelf. like, uh, cause you’re going against, you know, six to $7 bags of coffee versus what specially coffee ranges between like that 16 to 20 mark for a 12 ounce bag. And so, uh, mean, for us, some of the, uh, we definitely have had some concerns regarding like we, you know, there are supply chain issues in general for coffee and being a higher price in general than it has been in a long time. Now the tariffs, um, for us, we still have held off on making any type of like big change in regards to pricing, especially because when you’re looking at grocery as well, the volume that you’re moving means larger volumes of green that we’re able to purchase ahead of time as well. So there’s kind of a balance that happens when you’re working with higher volume that kind of lends itself a little bit easier to like be like, my price increase is not gonna be as aggressive maybe for you. But I would say it definitely is a lot to field for. Not everyone knowing what specialty is in grocery as well with specialty coffee specifically and knowing our market because they’re looking at their bottom line. But my biggest thing I would say to others is make sure your cost of goods you can afford it. Otherwise, it’s not worth it. Garrett Oden (29:11.084) I hear a lot of stories of roasters sort of tying their shoes together and tripping over, getting into these grocery deals and not having done quite the right number crunching. Maybe they just don’t anticipate all the fees or the volumes are different than they thought and it changes their operation. I don’t know, what’s your tip on not falling over on accident and getting into a deal that maybe you’re not ready for? Raina Roberts (29:36.919) think counting twice to get it right kind of situation. POSA goods always try to put in an additional percentage. It’s kind of like how my brain works into it because everything’s getting more expensive in general in the world. Rent’s gonna get more expensive. Your labor’s gonna get more expensive. Especially if you have really good retention of your current employees, it’s gonna get more expensive. you have to plan for at least, I would say like three years of inflation, like in your head when you’re looking at your cost of goods. Like that would be super helpful. So you’re not ending up putting more money forward. And essentially when you look at your… your revenue at the end of the day, you’re like, how, even though it feels like I’ve moved so much volume, that you don’t want to end up in the negative because you didn’t count right. And you didn’t attribute for all of the different costs that can incur outside of it. Cause the disputes will get you. They will. And we’ve been told by a lot of different people that sometimes it’s so like overwhelming that people just allow it to happen. Garrett Oden (30:43.682) Mm. Raina Roberts (30:53.48) and then that’s where you end up not being as successful as you plan to be. So I would say definitely add a little bit of extra room in that to make sure you’re costing yourself out for not just this year, but for a couple years in advance. Garrett Oden (31:12.878) Talk to me about disputes. I don’t think a lot of people might not know what this is and if they haven’t been a grocery for a long, can you give me give me a sense for like, what are the different kinds of disputes? Raina Roberts (31:20.694) So you can get, you didn’t label something correctly. Maybe someone accidentally put the wrong skew into a different case box. You could have… multiple skews on one palette. Like some people are very particular about how they receive their items. So when you misstep on something, they consider that a disputed charge because they’ll be like, hey, like you made our team do extra work. So there’s also different other stuff you can get in regards to even new item fees will be like a thing that you have to attribute to when you’re getting into different distributor centers or things like that. There are just like, I think the first time I got a list of fees, I kind of had to be like, these codes, what do they mean? Cause it literally is like CBB 12, 12, 12. And you’re like, what is that? Garrett Oden (32:17.102) Yeah Raina Roberts (32:23.146) I don’t know. So it’s just kind of like figuring out that like whatever rules they’ve given you, because you’ll get a packet if depending of like how they want to receive things and they can like take money away from what you would be seeing returned to you from that. Garrett Oden (32:45.602) Yeah. What about promotions? know, do y’all do a lot of promotions with Whole Foods or your other partners? how did the cost structure of that work? that like a per item or is that like flat rate? I’m curious what that looks like for y’all. Raina Roberts (33:00.15) So typically we do kind of align with the like off invoice percentage off. And so that will typically run for about a month’s time, in which case the goal in mind is for that to actually end up filtering over to the like end consumer, which would be goal in mind versus like it being just for the grocery. like Keiki to grocery or Unified to grocery or whatever. That is our preferred, because that’s gonna make people be like on shelf be like, hey, I saw partners for the first time and I saw that it was actually, you know, had a 15 % off and like, I love a deal. why don’t I do that and try them out for the first time? So it will vary depending on what distributor working with of what you’re able to do for promotions. You can always put forward whatever range you want, but once again, look at your cost of goods and make sure that you’re not, there’s almost like a balance between making your brand look cheap and making your brand seem viable and like something someone wants is also a thing. Garrett Oden (34:20.43) Yeah, yeah. So percentage off the invoice. So you’re technically giving a discount to the partner, not necessarily to the end consumer, and it’s kind of up to them to figure out how that works. Raina Roberts (34:31.23) It all, it varies. Like some of them will be like, this is gonna end up being consumer and where if you’re giving us 15%, we’ll put that forward to the customer so that when they scan it, they get that discount when they’re scanning the product to leave grocery. And some people it is more about like, for new acquisitions. So outside of just like, people refer to as an anchor account at a distributor, like you need an anchor account to get open up a DC, a distributor center. And then you have the independence that might be like, cool, now I maybe wouldn’t have purchased this at first, but like, let me trial it. So it kind of varies in how people might… conceptualize that promo period. Garrett Oden (35:24.59) What a dance. There’s so much to dance around here. Okay, what about marketing? Are you doing marketing differently in the Midwest than you have done in the Northeast? It’s maybe different buying behaviors, different priorities, or is it kind of the same? Raina Roberts (35:43.307) I think for a very long time we really were marketing the fact that we are a Brooklyn based New York company and that has been like a really big point for like the Northeast because like New York’s really known for having amazing food and having amazing like a lot of culturally like amazing things to it. But when you’re working outside of the region, New York people could take or leave. and that’s been a transition. feel like we’ve been making overall in the past year or so, to be like, we’re more than just New York. We’re a really great brand that everyone can enjoy. And I think that a little bit of the difference as well as like D to C, typically someone’s already on our site. So there’s the ability to get a lot of information to someone. There’s already a peaked interest versus like when you’re on shelf at a grocery store, you’ve got two seconds before someone’s like, I’m just moving my cart somewhere else. So it is a little bit of a different world. feels like we’re D to C. We can talk about all the different additions we can add, like the amount you can save by being a subscriber, the amount, like the fact that we have our amazing like brew crew team that are available via chat to like help people figure out how to brew their coffee to the best of their ability or like if they have any questions like an actual humans there to help you someone out in grocery would have to like pull a bag off shelf look at that read a bag figure out all of that to be like there’s more to this than just getting a bag of coffee it just feels like there’s a little bit of difference when you’re trying to get someone to gravitate on shelf where you’re like packaging’s really beautiful that’s usually the big like grab for like a lot of people but also learning more about the product itself is when people are like I’m not just here for coffee I’m here for milk and eggs and my whole week of grocery you just have a very limited time scope I would say Garrett Oden (38:00.78) Yeah. Yeah. This is interesting what you said about being like New York forward, because I’ve thought of partners as being Brooklyn forward and wondered if that would resonate, if that was the alignment would still be there in the Midwest, because the Brooklyn brand is pretty strong. I mean, the New York City brand is strong. But coffee, mean, you know, think people tend to think a little more regionally. If they they encounter like a regional signal, they tend to think that way. So I wondered if that was something that y’all might adjust. Okay, what about wholesale generally? You’re looking for cafes in the Midwest now and you’re in a bunch of cafes all over the Northeast, of course. What have you seen and how’s that process changed over the last few years? We’ve seen some things like price sensitivity is different than it was and concern about how active of a partner your coffee roaster is. I don’t know, I’m curious what’s that look like for you. Raina Roberts (39:05.654) So we’ve definitely made a lot of different strides, think, weirdly, because of how, like… things got really remote for a time to make sure the level of engagement that we’re able to have our wholesale customers. We actually learned a lot of like what we were capable of. So like for us, we do like a monthly newsletter would be like, hey, like guys, this is what’s going on. We also do like additional like, hey, try this on us, like kind of like codes and things that we do to try to like get people more invested in the brand and like knowing about the product. So even someone that’s like, hey, I normally don’t want some of your single origins, but like, I want to try and maybe taste it with the team. We’ll send recipes out to be like, hey, our team was like messing around with this, like, you should try it too. So we’ve definitely tried to like, make sure there’s a higher level of engagement even when like, and still have people be like, it’s me and my one counterpart, I guess, to make sure that like people are still feeling heard. and seen and like that we’re here to help them and that has been a really nice shift I think that we’ve seen as we’ve kind of transitioned a little bit to like really focus on those connections that’s not just about selling product or like getting money but being like hey this is something cool in the coffee world here’s something just like fun for you to know about because it’s not for us it’s more about the relationship than There is the money aspect, but we want you to feel cared for. We want you to feel like we’re just as invested as you are. It’s just we are small and mighty and there are limitations. So be like, I can’t call you every week, but I can make sure that like you’re taken care of and you’re good. Um, I mean the sales process in general, as we also have like kind of grown outside of like the New York area a little bit has been like Raina Roberts (41:13.688) figuring out ways to support with education outside of where we have our lab in New York. So figuring out remote ways to do trainings, like things of that nature, which we got like kind of dialed into to be like, hey, we can still support where we can to make sure your team is feeling like. Garrett Oden (41:28.686) Hmm. Raina Roberts (41:34.376) I can’t get on a flight, but I can make sure like we can FaceTime. We’ve got the technology to be able to like figure out a good way to make sure you’re taken care of. Garrett Oden (41:47.474) How do you do that? Because I’m a cafe in Michigan and there’s a roaster who’s an hour and a half away. I can go to their tasting room and look at some equipment and do things. But I like your coffee, but you’re far away. How do you compete with that? How do you make the case that you’re a better partner even though you’re further away? Raina Roberts (42:07.808) So I think it’s just based on there’s a couple different aspects of like, okay, like equipment, that’s a hard one. But let me look into my network of people to be like, I can put you in touch with someone that’s really great at tech work. They’re not, it’s… not going to be an arm and a leg and maybe that’s actually the person that you want to talk to you because they might be able to get you equipment too. I know there is the whole tech guild like they were talking about like they like to do that so like having those types of contacts through whatever vendors we work with as well to be like hey I’m Marzocco like do you guys know anyone here that’s like a tech and who knows and can sell your gear I want to put you in contact with this Michigan Brewster so that you can help them out and still being very transparent of what we’re capable of. I think that’s a good start to if you lie to someone that’s not a good start to a relationship. So like being like I can do X, Y and Z. This is what and I’m happy to give you, you know, support input helpful guide and stuff like what you should be doing. Not here to like Garrett Oden (43:09.006) Probably not. Raina Roberts (43:24.662) sell you on the biggest amount of kit possible, because I want you to just be successful in your space and what matters to you. And all of our team members are pretty geared in to be like, we’re used to New York spaces. like, we’re like spaces paramount here. So like, there are certain things that were really helpful at being able to provide those guidance and setting those expectations. And if it’s a matter of like, hey, I’m gonna send you some coffee, let’s get on a call and figure out while you’re tasting it in case there’s anything I can help in regards to dialing in or recipes or things like that while you’re tasting with the team. There’s still ways with the technology we have to be able to support someone from a distance. That’s kind of, we try our best and we also understand some people do want the person that’s like right there. It makes sense, but we can also do as much as we can to support as well. Like we have West Coast folks that we’ve had for a very long time that do our coffee and that’s five days transit to get coffee to them. But we’re able to maintain those relationships. Garrett Oden (44:42.318) Absolutely, yeah. Okay, what about balancing brand and scale as you grow, you extend your reach. Sometimes you have to make trade-offs for what kinds of coffees you can serve or what coffees you could put in a blend to meet the price points that a retailer wants you to have in there. I don’t know, have you found ways to make it work and have you had to draw any boundaries about what you will and won’t do, what kinds of trade-offs you will and won’t make? Raina Roberts (45:11.188) I think that, so like for us, as we have expanded, we more recently opened up a new roastering space in Bushwick, which… we definitely outgrew our space for a very long time in our Williamsburg store. So that was like number one, we were like, we need a bigger roaster. We need to make sure this isn’t as labor intensive for our team to be able to like do larger batches because that’s going to help. We still do all of our QC checking every day, every roasters being cupped just to make sure that like we’re still in line in regards to that quality and the expectation that we’ve always had for ourselves. There might be coffee is that like when I’m looking at grocery too, it’s like I’m not going to be putting forward single origins because those are changing every three to six months. So like for us, I’m like and they’re higher price, which might not end up on for a consumer level, maybe something that people are like, oh, do I want this Ethiopian coffee that’s $25? Maybe not on shelf when you have other things comparatively. There are certain, I would say some even are blends that are a little higher price that aren’t always the ones that we put forward in our initial like pitch. Like there are our solid four that I usually am like, hey, these are like our top four sellers. is gonna I know I can show the data of like how they perform across like all of our different channels like they are our top four some of these other ones are a little bit higher priced and when you’re line pricing usually at grocery too how does someone explain like why am I paying $3 more for something that I’m going to put at the same price so that’s also something to think about I guess Garrett Oden (47:09.74) It’s always interesting, know, in HGP and Target, I see Blue Bottle, Intelligencia, Stumptown, Counter Culture, know, brands that… Raina Roberts (47:19.849) sorry, cut out for a second. Garrett Oden (47:22.126) Oh, there was a little delay. Hello, can you hear me? Check, check. We can cut this out. Check, Hello, hello. Garrett Oden (47:33.314) Can you hear me okay? Raina Roberts (47:40.864) than me? Yes. Garrett Oden (47:41.646) Can you hear me? I can hear you. Are we okay? Are we back to normal? Okay, I think so too. We can cut all this out. Raina Roberts (47:46.048) Great. Yes. Yes. Garrett Oden (47:56.814) I always think it’s interesting to go to Target, to H-E-B here in Texas, and I see Stumptown, Intelligencia, Counter Culture. The coffees you buy on the shelf there are very different than the coffees you’d get in store. There’s hints of the brand that are still in those bags, but I’ve bought some of these out of curiosity when I’m in a pinch and I need something quick. I have not loved the Intelligencia coffee that I’ve gotten there. in same way that I have when I’ve gone to a store and I wonder, and by the way, shout out to Counter Culture, I don’t know how you do this, but their hologram coffee, it is what I expect at the store. I don’t know how they do that. I think it’s like $14 or $15 a bag here in Austin. So yeah, I don’t know what magic they’re doing to pull that off, but you know, so there’s something there that’s like, know, it’s maybe a bit of a disconnect, but also it seems like it works for the business. You know, people will buy that coffee. there’s a lot of people for whom that’s still probably some of the best coffee they’ve ever had. I how do you think about managing those expectations and what the experience might be like from being in a partner store versus buying on the shelf? there any difference there or is that not something that you all are too worried about? Raina Roberts (49:11.67) So for us, it’s the same coffee, which I can see why maybe someone would do, maybe cut their blends a little bit more to be more cost effective for grocery. I can see why to once again, bring into that idea of like your cost of goods and make sure that what ends up on shelf there, especially if there is a discrepancy from like what you’re supplying for your cafes and your like. It would, it makes sense, I guess. But it’s not something that we have any plans of doing. Like it will still be the same blend components, the same product. Like that’s. Yeah, I’m like trying to be like, makes sense, but it wouldn’t be something that I would want to put forward just because I guess from a transparency of like whatever I’m pitching to someone when the buyer is initially purchasing, like I just would want to make sure it’s the same exact thing that ends up on shelf as well. But yeah. Garrett Oden (50:17.262) Gotcha, Trade-offs, you know, I don’t think there’s any wrong decision. I think there’s only the decision that makes sense for the company strategically. yeah, it’s interesting how different roasters parse that out. Raina Roberts (50:29.033) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I said, it makes sense, because all the different costs that can incur and making sure that you’re set up for success. But yeah, I don’t think that’s any plan that right now. That’s there’s no plan for that on our end. Garrett Oden (50:51.854) Well, let’s step out of wholesale grocery because I think you’ve presided over some other product launches at partners in the last few years. So let’s see cold brew pouches, instant coffee. What’s that process been like? Raina Roberts (51:07.302) so one of the things that we kind of were like, why we steamed ahead with those concepts was the need that we were finding that people wanted to find an easier way to brew coffee. And so like, we wanted to still keep our the integrity of our brand and integrity of like what the product is, but make sure it was more accessible for people. I mean, we launched the Rockaway cold brew pouches to kind of make a simpler version of like, how do you make cold brew at home? That’s maybe a little less messy, because now it’s like pre ground, pre portion pouches that you literally can throw into a mason jar or pitcher, add your water, and then you know in a 12 to 24 hours you’ve got cold brew. It makes it just like a and then afterwards you take the pouch out you can get rid of it versus I recall making cold brew in like one of those like KitchenAid cold brewers and then all the grinds similar like when you’re doing a french press like grinds everywhere it’s my least favorite thing you’re not supposed to throw it down the sink just FYI. Garrett Oden (52:20.812) Okay. Raina Roberts (52:21.622) Some people forget that, you’re not supposed to. So we just wanted to make it easier for people to enjoy what we’re enjoying in our cafe at home. Same thing with the instant coffee was the fact of like we cupped a lot of different coffees and we wanted to like be like, hey I want to compare my Brooklyn like brewed on a Fetco versus my Brooklyn instant sachet and the fact that it stands up and has such a high quality to it that like I can travel and have a good cup of coffee wherever I am or my grandma who only drinks instant coffee, I can get her into it because she just wants to add hot water and not have anything be a mess. It just was one of those things where like there is definitely a world where people are looking for easier brewing, but also still specialty. And they’ve just been, I mean, received really well overall since we’ve launched both of those products. Garrett Oden (53:21.07) I’m really optimistic about the cold brew pouch format. And I’m sure you remember this, but there was a point in time where if you gave a monkey a keyboard and they press three buttons, you would be on a cold brew coffee maker page on Kickstarter. And there were just dozens and dozens of these from like 2014 to 2020 and just so many countless. And they were all raising dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the demand for this is just wild. And they were all almost virtually the same, you know, same core concepts typically. But I really like the pouch format. It just makes a lot of sense for something simple at home, which like that’s kind of like the promise of Cold Brew is that it’s so simple and can be, you know, so easy. So I really like the pouch format. Do people like that? I mean, is that like as well received as I imagine it should be? Raina Roberts (54:14.07) Oh, I mean, it definitely has like, I think it hits really hard in our D to C market versus, I mean, we did have it, we launched with World Market as well. And I mean, World Market is a hilarious place. Like you can get so many different things there. And they picked up the Rockaway cold brew pouches because they’re like, this fits what we’re looking for. I mean, it definitely during this season as well like for summer like spring summertime it just really hits for people because also the blend like not we also have a lot of like tourists that come into our cafes and then they’ll leave and be like i really like the cold brew and then so now they can have it at home if they just get shipped to their house so yeah it’s definitely been very well received to the point where i think there when we first launched it we ran out of stock and we’re like struggling to be like we need to get more we weren’t anticipating how quickly this would be consumed and now we’ve learned how much we need to have and we’ve gotten a little bit better to make sure we don’t run out of stock. Garrett Oden (55:28.686) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if you ever need some whimsy, go to World Market. Don’t sleep on that place. It’s fun. Well, okay, what else? What else is coming up in coffee over the next six months to a year? What kinds of trends are you looking at or at least just mindful of to kind of inform how you do your work well? Raina Roberts (55:48.426) I mean, for me, the biggest trend I’ve been kind of witnessing is a lot of certifications, lot of, almost like bags being just like half of it is certifications. It definitely is something to combat against, it feels like. for me at least. We have discussed, we’re planning on doing an organic blend, but we wouldn’t want to, with certain, some of our supply chain in regards to like the producers and farmers we work with, there’s limitations on people that are gonna be organic certified due to costs and things like that. And that’s a hard one. It feels like sometimes to explain to the consumer end of being like, not all producers and farmers can afford the certification. They might be functionally organic and do all the right procedures and things like that. But it is a harder concept to be like, I don’t want to break those relationships we’ve built over time. So that’s definitely just something I’ve been keeping an eye on to just see how other folks are maybe running the world of, you know, organic certified versus non-organic certified. We’ll see as I continue to like, feel like stalking everyone else’s products to see how that’s going on shelf. And I mean, other stuff that I feel like is cool that I’ve just been seeing is not just in wholesale like grocery, just wholesale in general is the like more people are invested in the stories of coffee, it feels like. It’s definitely even like on the consumer end. I’ve been witnessing now over the past couple years that people actually are like more invested and it’s been really just wonderful to see because there is a lot of work. Raina Roberts (57:44.34) that goes into the cup of coffee. And I think that with consumers knowing more about that, it makes our jobs a little bit easier, to be honest. Garrett Oden (57:55.022) Absolutely. Well, Reyna, I have so many other questions that I’ve skipped by. I should probably let you get back to your work. You’ve got a lot going on. Thank you so much for joining the podcast and I really appreciate it. Raina Roberts (58:07.2) Thank you for having me, this was fun. But yes, I do have lots of work to do. Garrett Oden (58:11.766) Alright.
Garrett Oden is the owner of Fresh Cup, a coffee industry publication for professionals, and Alimentous Studio, a content and copywriting agency for coffee, F&B, and food tech businesses.
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