Love the beans your cafe serves for drip coffee but not the ones for espresso? You’re not alone. Although 50% of coffee beans get used for espresso, most roasters spend 90% of their time on their drip coffee offerings. Espresso rarely gets the attention it needs. Fortunately, there’s a simple fix: Partner with an Espresso Specialist.
Josuma currently supplies Malabar Gold® Espresso (our flagship espresso) to independent coffee houses in 20+ states and parts of Canada. We also supply many lower volume outlets with Monsoon Medley (a versatile bean that works for both drip and espresso).
While we’re always looking for new partners, we limit our growth to just a handful of cafes each quarter.
KEY PILLARS OF OUR WHOLESALE PROGRAM:
1. The Specialist Approach
Historically, the default model for independent cafes has been to partner exclusively with one roasting company. The downside of this approach is that most roasters try to be “jacks of all trades” but, as is always the case, end up being “masters of none.”
Smarter cafes use a different approach, one that’s common in the rest of the food industry. Much the same way the best restaurants buy meat from a butcher, chicken from a poultry purveyor, and fish from a seafood specialist rather than all three from a single source, many of the best coffee houses will work with more than one coffee bean vendor. They recognize that every roaster has both strengths and weaknesses.
This is the approach that all of our customers use. They partner with us, The Espresso Specialist, for their espresso program and look to another roaster, with stellar drip coffee options, for the brewed coffee menu.
2. Avoiding Competition with Our Customers
Coffee houses that buy beans from a local roaster quickly discover that their “partner” is often also a competitor. The roaster may operate their own cafe not too far away and also stock beans in the area’s stores. They’ll also supply beans to the cafes, bakeries, and restaurants that that you compete with for customers.
We take a very different approach. We don’t operate competing cafes. We don’t supply more than one cafe in a single market. Moreover, we operate a limited Direct-to-Consumer operation, offering only bulk sizes through our website leaving single bag sales to our partners.
If you become a Wholesale Partner, we’ll be FULLY INVESTED in your success. Unlike local roasters, who hedge their bets by supplying you and your competitors, we only succeed if you succeed.
3. No Customer Too Big or Too Small
Our wholesale order minimum is just 10 pounds. Our largest customers go through that many pounds in a day; our smaller customer can sometimes take 10-15 days to use up that much beans. While we have no required order frequency, customers that order every week or every other week typically see better results with their espresso.
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