Purchasing Wholesale Green Coffee Beans: Here’s What You Need to Know
“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.” - Albert Camus
You have to start somewhere, they always say, and what they mean by that is exactly what uncle Albert was saying: Beginnings are ridiculous. They just are. You look silly. You want to do what? Roast coffee? What do you mean you want to roast coffee?
And yet, you persisted. At least, I hope you did — and I hope you do.
Maybe it was, indeed, on a street corner, or while walking into your favorite coffeehouse, that you were caught by the crazy notion that you wanted to roast raw coffee beans and then — crazy on top of crazy — sell it to people. Maybe you’ve worked in the coffee industry for some time, as a barista or packing and delivering roasted coffee , when you decided you wanted to be a coffee roaster. Maybe you were already a roaster working for somebody else when you decided to strike out on your own. Maybe you were a coffee lover who never worked in coffee but started wondering if you could, if you might, do a thing that made people happy.
Every journey is different. That’s also something they always say. When it comes time to consider whether Olam Specialty Coffee should be a part of your journey as a roaster, remember that we only sell wholesale coffee beans by 60-70 kilo bags. How do you know when you’re ready to create an online account and start ordering 60-kilo bags of coffee from Olam?
Ready to purchase wholesale green coffee beans ? Here’s what you need to know.
If you’re still reading, there is a good chance that at some point in the not-too-distant past you’ve Googled “buy a coffee roaster.” What a trip, right? When it comes to turning wholesale green coffee beans into brown coffee, it seems like the only limit is imagination. When it comes to roasting coffee for your own consumption, a cast iron frying pan or a popcorn popper are legitimate options. They might not be great options, but they are methods for roasting coffee that are used to varying degrees of success to produce small amounts of roasted coffee, usually for home consumption or “friends and family” distribution.
As fun as it might be to take the batteries out of your smoke detectors and roast coffee using any of the homespun methods you can find online, few of these ancient and/or inventive roasting methods are indicators that you’re ready to buy raw coffee beans from Olam , but not because we don’t like you or don’t want to sell you coffee. Olam Specialty Coffee is a business-to-business wholesaler. We sell wholesale green coffee beans, primarily, to companies that are in the coffee roasting business. First things first, you have to “be” in business.
Want to explore our Green Brazilian Coffee?
When you submit your first order for wholesale green coffee beans , we will look for some indication that you own and operate a coffee roasting business. Do you have a website? Social media accounts? You can help us here by including your website URL or social media handles when requesting an online account.
It might be that you’re planning to roast and sell coffee at some point in the future but you’re not prepared yet to buy full bags. Maybe your business plan is still evolving. In cases like these, we will often refer you to online suppliers that sell to consumers and start-ups and sell smaller than 60 kilos online. In fact, we will recommend our friends at Sweet Marias , Burman Coffee , or Slack Bag Coffee .
Activating Your Olam Wholesale Coffee Account
This doesn’t mean we don’t want to work with you. We work with a lot of startup and micro-roasters, so there is definitely potential for us to build a relationship. Just remember, we are a business-to-business wholesaler and we sell wholesale green coffee beans in full-size bags.
Some people come to our website to look at pricing because they are in the early stages of writing a business plan. We offer a wide variety of coffees, but in very general terms, price per pound will range from as low as $2.00 up to around $6 (Geisha, Kenya) or even higher for certain unique coffees. That would put a full 70 kg sack at a price range of approximately $340 - $925 or a full 60 kg bag at $290 - $795 .
One of the most important things to remember when thinking about buying larger amounts of green coffee beans is the cost of shipping. While we can ship 60 kilos via FedEx for a flat rate of $160, larger and/or multiple bags must be shipped via ground transportation and this becomes a significant part of your total purchase price. Our shipping rates can be found here.
When considering whether it is time to buy 60-kilo bags of coffee, it’s important to ask yourself where all that roasted coffee will go. A 60-kilo bag holds approximately 132 pounds of green coffee beans that will roast down to approximately 110 pounds of roasted coffee. Sure, you don’t need to roast it all at once, but if it would take you months to get through a 60-kilo bag, because of the size of your roasters or lack of distribution (family and friends at first) or both of these reasons, you’re probably not ready for 60-kilos just yet.
When you create your account, and our eCommerce department becomes your “coffee trader,” remember to look in the “deals” section on our website. These are past crop coffees, but don’t hold that against them. We like to say that “ past crop is second act coffee .”
If you have any questions about creating an account or purchasing wholesale green coffee beans from Olam Specialty Coffee, let us know — we’re happy to help.
