Beyond the Roast: Building a Private Label Coffee Service

When Haden Polseno-Hensley and his wife, Rose McCutchen, launched Red Rooster Coffee Roaster four years ago, private labels were not in their plans—Polseno-Hensley was not even familiar with the concept. Yet within six months, they had created a co-branded private label for a nearby winery to serve and sell in its tasting room. Today, a tab for private labels and coffee gifts sits at the top of the company’s website, next to the wholesale tab.

There are many good reasons for cafés to purchase private label coffee—beans roasted by another company but packaged under the café’s brand. But when should a roastery offer this service? What does a private label entail beyond roasting? And what kinds of clients exist beyond coffeehouses?

A Unique Approach

Polseno-Hensley began pursuing private-label roasting after realizing he had inadvertently solved a major hurdle for small roasters serving clients who need only a small amount of coffee: minimum order requirements.

Some of Red Rooster’s private label clients purchase just 100 bags—a tiny quantity that would be impractical for most printers. By working with a local screen printer, Polseno-Hensley can accommodate such orders.

“It’s become a fundamental part of our business, just by happenstance by the way we have our bags printed,” he says. “It allows more flexibility because we don’t buy in numbers of 10,000 or 20,000 labels, and we have short runs of 150 to 500 bags printed at a time.” For bag design, Red Rooster collaborates with a local designer who produces wood-block-inspired illustrations (the roaster uses a similar style for its own packaging).

This setup is a smaller-scale version of what Dillanos Coffee Roasters provides. Lon LaFlame, Dillanos’ marketing director, says the company has a team of design professionals who handle this work for clients. Often, coffeehouses begin the process with only a limited understanding of their brand and what they want to present to customers.

Knowing how to build an identity—at least one that appears on a bag—and having a passion for the detailed work involved (or having a consultant available) are prerequisites for a roastery offering private labels. The back-and-forth between client and designer, along with the collaboration between roaster and client to select a blend, can take several weeks.

Distinct Offerings

Stone Creek Coffee in Milwaukee’s typical private label client is a wholesale customer who wants to expand their offerings with a private label blend. This is also common at Red Rooster.

Phil Lenaghan, Stone Creek’s director of wholesale, says these private label clients are often glad to co-brand with Stone Creek. While co-branding can be advantageous, Lenaghan emphasizes the need for “the right partner.” Stone Creek prints labels in-house and has a staff designer.

Just as it is crucial to choose a café that will handle and brew your beans properly, finding private label clients who respect the coffee is essential. “It’s more detrimental to have our name on there if they’re going to have our coffee sitting on a shelf for six months somewhere,” he says. For Lenaghan, working with people who share your values is ideal.

Both Dillanos and Stone Creek offer menus of blends from which clients can choose for private label collaborations. This simplifies the process for both roaster and client and ensures the coffee profile can be delivered consistently. Both companies also create custom blends with clients—something Polseno-Hensley does for all his clients.

Private labels need not fit the wholesale model either. Red Rooster regularly works with clients who want to give coffee as a gift—people who want to buy 100 bags at once. These clients might be a company seeking an addition to holiday gift baskets or a couple who wants to send wedding guests home with a bag of coffee. At Stone Creek, such clients range from marketing firms and health systems to booksellers and painting companies. These are almost always one-time orders, with possible repeats the following year.

Regular private label buyers for Red Rooster include companies that use the coffee in their offices and like to have it on hand for gifting. Among these, Red Rooster is proud of its collaboration with the online funding website Kickstarter. “It’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned,” Polseno-Hensley says. “They want to show that they support a small artisan company that’s probably meaningful to their clients. And, of course, I’m thrilled to have my name on a Kickstarter bag of coffee.”