Wholesale

About You

 

Most companies start this process by talking about themselves (you can find our story here if you're interested), but let's start with you.

• Coffee is probably a pretty important part of your business (maybe THE most important part)

• You want your coffee to be something that suits your customers; something that they rave about and come back for time and time again.

• Your customers appreciate quality, so that's a given, but you don't want to overpay to support a roasting company that wouldn't even notice if you stopped placing orders.

• You value relationships; among your staff, with your customers and with your vendors.

 

How We Help You

 

Quality and Value: Obviously, this is critically important. We take great pride in a simple proposition. We take very good, carefully sourced, green coffee and roast it to its fullest potential. This allows us to give you the best valuebecause we do not have to overpay for green coffee in order to produce a great roasted coffee. That means you do not have to overpay to get great coffee.

 

We also take our Midwestern roots seriously. No opulent corporate headquarters decked out in the latest architectural trends or littered with the fanciest expensive equipment. We believe in well-made tools that get the job done right and that's what we surround ourselves with. There's no lack of pride here, just a commitment to doing what actually benefits our partners.

 

Access and Convenience: As a wholesale partner, you have direct access to the roaster and the Cottonwood ownership. We make doing business as easy as possible because you have enough to worry about while running your own company.

• Ordering can be done through our online platform or by text, email, phone, smoke signal (you get the idea)

• There are no order minimums. We offer free shipping on orders $100 or more to keep things simple for you. No need to order way ahead to meet some lofty threshold. Again, we understand that you have better things that require your attention

 

Responsiveness and Adaptability: This isn't a 'take it or leave it' offer. Do you really like one of our coffees, but wish it had a certain characteristic? Let's talk. Let's make sure what you are serving your customers is exactly what you need.

 

Training and Resources: If you are anything like most independent shop owners/managers, you have a lot of questions. Wouldn't it be nice if a company went beyond the cliched 'we're in this together' and actually listened to you? With over 30 years of combined experience running retail operations and over a decade roasting, we might not have every answer, but we have a lot of them and we know where to look when we're stumped.

• Barista Training. For regional accounts, we can come to you or you can come to our facility to receive hands on training that actually works and your employees will use.

• Equipment. Cottonwood has dealership arrangements with many of the top espresso equipment brands and can not only help you decide what is right for you, but also help you get the best possible price.

• Systems. This is one of our specialties. Over years of trying a little of everything, we have found that well-implemented systems are worth their weight in gold. We are happy to share what works for us.

 

Direct Consultation: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we think you deserve more than a nice saying like “When You Win, We Win!” So, our team sat down and really started to think about how we could best be of service to the businesses that put their trust in us. Should we be the cheapest? The fastest? The flashiest? Having spoken with many, many owners and managers, we realized that people need help. They need someone to listen to their specific set of issues and challenges and offer specific advice to them directly.

 

We do offer direct consultation to coffee businesses (you can check that out more here), but a lot of businesses are working their butts off just to keep the lights on, so the idea of paying even more isn't in the cards.

 

We can help you. As a benefit of being a wholesale partner with Cottonwood, we offer one hour of month of free direct consultation to your team. We have developed a list of the top issues facing most companies (margins, pricing, hiring, systems, etc) and we can talk about that or we can talk about anything that is on your mind. As a stand alone service, we charge $500 per month, but because this can be so valuable to our partners, we offer it as part of our wholesale relationship.