CoffeeTalk Magazine: Private Label Success – by Spencer Turer

Private Label Success

Things have changed in the world of private label sales. Retailers used to stock pri­vate label prod­ucts as a way to fill shelf space. Today, retail­ers look at private-label as an impor­tant piece of their brand image. Roasters tra­di­tion­ally would fall into one cat­e­gory: pri­vate label or branded man­u­fac­tur­ing. Today roast­ers con­sider pri­vate label busi­ness an impor­tant part of their diver­si­fied sales offering.

Selling pri­vate label cof­fee is a com­pli­cated busi­ness. There is an enor­mous amount of eco­nomic and phys­i­cal risk on both sides of the busi­ness. Private label brand man­agers have the respon­si­bil­ity to nego­ti­ate agree­ments, man­age sup­ply chains, develop retail mer­chan­dis­ing pro­grams, and ensure the finan­cial health of the cat­e­gory. Coffee roast­ers sales man­agers have the com­plex respon­si­bil­ity of coör­di­nat­ing green coffee/materials buy­ing, pro­duc­tion sched­ules, prod­uct devel­op­ment, qual­ity con­trol, dis­tri­b­u­tion and finan­cial man­age­ment. The core of the pri­vate label rela­tion­ship is pro­vid­ing the ser­vices and sup­port in a col­lab­o­ra­tive way to ensure mutual success. Read more here.