The Grocery Expansion Game w/ Raina Roberts [Partners Coffee]

Описание: With quality coffee more widely available than ever, roasters can no longer rely solely on their beans’ excellence to drive growth. As Raina Roberts, Business Development Director at Partners Coffee in Brooklyn, NY, puts it, “When everyone’s special, no one’s special.”

Raina oversees 250+ wholesale accounts and has guided Partners’ expansion beyond the Northeast. She’s seen how grocery buyers now demand more, charge hidden fees, and issue dispute codes that can wreck margins if you’re not prepared.

In this Coffee Think Tank episode, we unpack what it really takes to break into grocery, the costs you can’t overlook, how to support rollouts across regions, and how to win wholesale accounts when you’re not local. If you handle B2B growth or expansion at a roaster, this one’s for you.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
-- How Partners Coffee grew from a Northeast base into Midwest grocery chains
-- The real economics and logistics behind specialty coffee in grocery stores
-- Why a grocery partnership can take a year before products hit shelves
-- How to calculate true COGS for grocery to stay profitable
-- Hidden fees and dispute deductions that erode margins
-- Balancing Brooklyn identity with broad-market appeal
-- Winning wholesale clients when you aren’t the local roaster
-- Developing travel-friendly specialty SKUs like cold-brew pouches and instant coffee
-- Using DTC data to prove market potential in new regions

CHAPTERS
00:00 The changing landscape of coffee biz-dev
03:02 Raina’s journey in coffee
06:08 What a Business Development Director really does
08:51 Distribution and logistics landmines
11:57 First big Midwest win: Fresh Thyme Market
15:07 Marketing a new region from afar
18:02 How grocery sales actually happen
21:06 Data management and transparency headaches
24:10 Tariffs and price shocks
28:07 Pricing strategy under grocery pressure
31:12 Understanding and fighting disputes
35:43 Region-specific marketing tactics
39:05 Serving wholesale customers that aren’t local
45:11 Protecting brand integrity while scaling
51:07 Product innovation—cold brew, instant, and more
55:48 Trends shaping coffee’s next five years

WHERE TO FIND RAINA ROBERTS
-- LinkedIn:   / raina-roberts-155407211  
-- Partners Coffee: https://www.partnerscoffee.com/
-- Instagram:   / partnerscoffee  

MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
-- Fresh Thyme Market: https://www.freshthyme.com/
-- Whole Foods Market: https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/
-- World Market: https://www.worldmarket.com/
-- Rockaway Cold Brew Pouches: https://www.partnerscoffee.com/produc...
-- Partners Instant Coffee: https://www.partnerscoffee.com/collec...

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The Coffee Think Tank podcast is a show about trends, ideas, and innovations in coffee by Fresh Cup, hosted by Garrett Oden. Subscribe to Fresh Cup for more industry insights at freshcup.com.