Hello all,
I've roasted my own coffee for years and have frequently stalked the forums for information. I have to admit I'm a big of a stalker on message boards, in that I rarely ever post to them, despite spending countless hours reading through them, hence just having created a login after spending a lot of time on the site.
Anyways, I'm taking a business class over the "j-term". On top of needing to spend a significant amount of time on the usual class stuff and studying, we were assigned a project to either import or export a product of our choice and develop a business plan for that product. Due to my love of coffee it seemed like a natural choice for me to use coffee beans as my product. Knowing the complexities of roasting and the type of facility, equipment, permits, packaging etc required for selling your own roasted beans, I decided I would take the "Easy" way out (at least from a research perspective) and sell green beans.
I have gotten quotes from several several suppliers, ocean freight quotes, trucking quotes, loan terms, and warehouse quotes. However, there is still a ton of information I don't have and I am having trouble getting and would really appreciate any information people can share about experiences with either importing beans or selling wholesale beans.
For instance, my one big question is, how would one ship large bags of beans? (15 or 25lb bags). Is there a cost effective service for sending out orders of 1-2 bags at a time? Or is the price too much and you either need to ship in small bags to consumers (1-2.5 lbs) or ship wholesale through trucking?
Also, do you need permits or inspections to sell green beans? nutritional labels? I know a little bit about what is required for selling roasted beans, but I can't really find any information about selling unroasted beans.
I've never been so stressed over anything for work or a college class like this project. I frankly find it absurd, especially in that we only have 3 weeks for the project, most of us have real jobs, and the professor expects it to be a realistic plan with tons of documentation. Any help would be sooo greatly appreciated.
-Bryan
I've roasted my own coffee for years and have frequently stalked the forums for information. I have to admit I'm a big of a stalker on message boards, in that I rarely ever post to them, despite spending countless hours reading through them, hence just having created a login after spending a lot of time on the site.
Anyways, I'm taking a business class over the "j-term". On top of needing to spend a significant amount of time on the usual class stuff and studying, we were assigned a project to either import or export a product of our choice and develop a business plan for that product. Due to my love of coffee it seemed like a natural choice for me to use coffee beans as my product. Knowing the complexities of roasting and the type of facility, equipment, permits, packaging etc required for selling your own roasted beans, I decided I would take the "Easy" way out (at least from a research perspective) and sell green beans.
I have gotten quotes from several several suppliers, ocean freight quotes, trucking quotes, loan terms, and warehouse quotes. However, there is still a ton of information I don't have and I am having trouble getting and would really appreciate any information people can share about experiences with either importing beans or selling wholesale beans.
For instance, my one big question is, how would one ship large bags of beans? (15 or 25lb bags). Is there a cost effective service for sending out orders of 1-2 bags at a time? Or is the price too much and you either need to ship in small bags to consumers (1-2.5 lbs) or ship wholesale through trucking?
Also, do you need permits or inspections to sell green beans? nutritional labels? I know a little bit about what is required for selling roasted beans, but I can't really find any information about selling unroasted beans.
I've never been so stressed over anything for work or a college class like this project. I frankly find it absurd, especially in that we only have 3 weeks for the project, most of us have real jobs, and the professor expects it to be a realistic plan with tons of documentation. Any help would be sooo greatly appreciated.
-Bryan
