Private label coffee roasters and white label coffee suppliers

Pounds, bags and pods are three different minimums

The first thing to fix is the unit, because roasters do not share one. The small and mid sized roasters who publish a minimum mostly write it in pounds of coffee per blend. Specialty Java in Waconia, Minnesota states a 25 lb minimum on 5 lb and 12 oz packaging. Good as Gold Coffee in Worcester, Massachusetts says its air roasting lets it offer wholesale as small as a 30 lb minimum. Texas Artisan Roasters in New Braunfels asks for 50 lbs per blend and lets you combine origins. TiA Coffee in Honeoye Falls, New York asks for 50 lbs per blend on its house blends and 100 lbs for a custom blend, which it develops at no charge.

Others write it in bags. Reboot Roasting in Bellevue, Nebraska sets a minimum quantity of 25 bags in 8 or 12 oz. Brown & Jenkins, roasting in Vermont since 1984, states a 50 bag minimum without saying which bag size. And single serve plants write it in pods: Three Rivers Coffee Company states a standard MOQ of 5,000 pods per SKU.

Put them in one unit before you compare. A worked model, with the assumption stated: at a 12 oz fill, Reboot's 25 bags are 18.75 lb of coffee, which is smaller than Specialty Java's 25 lb even though the number looks the same. Texas Artisan's 50 lb makes about 66 bags of 12 oz, and TiA's 100 lb custom blend minimum makes about 133. If you assume roughly 11 grams of coffee per pod (confirm the fill weight with the plant), 5,000 pods hold about 121 lb, so the pod minimum is five to six times the smallest bagged minimums before you even count the pod cartons.

Four suppliers state no minimum at all: Dripshipper, Roastify, Temecula Coffee Roasters and Rebel Dog Coffee Co. in Bristol, Connecticut. The larger co packers, including Joe's Garage Coffee, Pod Pack, White Coffee and Intelligent Blends, say they offer low minimums and publish no number. Ask them for it in pounds and in bags at your fill size.

The bag printer usually sets your real minimum

The minimum that decides most first runs is not on the roaster's site. It belongs to whoever prints the bag. Roastar, the Wisconsin bag printer that Specialty Java recommends for short runs, publishes its floors: 500 gusset bags per order (100 per design), 1,000 stand up pouches per order, 1,000 flat bottom bags per design, and 100 coffee bag labels. A worked model: 500 gusset bags at 12 oz hold 375 lb of coffee, which is 15 times Specialty Java's 25 lb minimum and 20 times Reboot's 25 bags. If your plan is a fully printed bag on day one, your first run is the printer's minimum, not the roaster's.

That is why most small roasters launch you on a stock bag with your label. Specialty Java offers ten different stock 12 oz bags and prints and applies your photo quality labels. Lucky Goat Coffee in Tallahassee runs three programs: a template label with a 2.5 by 2.5 inch printable area on a 3 by 4 inch label, a fully custom 3 by 4 inch label printed edge to edge, and a fully custom printed bag. TiA supports stock label bags in black or white and fully custom printed bags. Temecula offers black, white, kraft and compostable stock bags with labels printed on demand, and advises most brands to wait 6 to 12 months after launch before ordering printed bags. Reboot takes the other route: you design and produce the bags and labels and ship them to Nebraska.

If you want printed packaging, read our custom packaging manufacturers page before you commit, and ask each roaster whether it deducts anything when you supply your own bags. Specialty Java says it makes deductions for customer supplied bags; most roasters do not say either way.

Only 5 of 20 roasters publish a price

Price is where private label coffee gets vague. Of the 20 US roasters we read, five publish a number. TiA Coffee states whole bean pricing from $10.50 per pound for its core selections, and says plainly that this excludes packaging materials, labor and freight, with a small per pound surcharge for ground. Texas Artisan Roasters states $10 to $20 per pound for standard blends and a one time custom packaging setup fee from $250. Reboot Roasting states prices from $11.95 a bag, with discounts for 1,000 or more, on bags you supply. Roastify in Bend, Oregon states $12 per 12 oz box at its member price and $18 at the one off price, with plans from $15 a month. Dripshipper publishes its monthly plans at $30, $99 and $197 and keeps per bag prices behind its login.

A worked model from TiA's published figure: a 12 oz bag holds three quarters of a pound, so the coffee inside costs about $7.88 at $10.50 a pound, before the bag, the label, the labor and the freight that TiA excludes. That is the number to hold against your shelf price, and it is why a per pound quote and a per bag quote cannot be compared until you know what each one includes.

The raw material moves under all of these quotes. The ICE Arabica futures price was 284.17 US cents a pound on September 29, 2026, according to Trading Economics, down about 24% on a year earlier and well below the all time high of 440.85 cents in February 2025. Green coffee is only part of a roaster's cost, but when it swings this far, a price quoted in the spring is not a price you can count on in the fall. Ask how long a quote holds and whether it is tied to the market.

Temecula publishes no per bag price on its public pages, but it does publish something rarer: most of its brands report $1,500 to $25,000 in start up costs, and its brands report 15% to 35% gross margin online and 45% to 60% selling in person. Those are the vendor's own figures, not ours, and they are the most concrete answer we found to whether private label coffee is profitable.

Dropship platform or roaster, two different businesses

Some private label coffee suppliers ship each order to your customer. Others roast your minimum and ship you cases. They look similar on a search results page and they are different businesses.

Dropship first: Dripshipper in San Diego sells from one unit, integrates with Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, Squarespace and BigCommerce, roasts bagged coffee the day it ships through two roasting partners, and charges a monthly plan. Roastify roasts in house in Bend, prints fully custom packaging on demand, and quotes 3 to 4 business days before carrier pickup on its base plan and 2 business days on Pro. Temecula Coffee Roasters in Southern California requires a Shopify store, admits brands through its own app after reviewing a business plan, and quotes an all in dropship price for US orders. TiA also fulfills direct to consumer orders if you send a prepaid label and a digital packing slip per order, with a per order handling fee. Rebel Dog offers dropshipping too.

Bulk roasters sit on the other side. Specialty Java says in writing that it does not provide drop shipping to your customers and points you to a third party warehouse. Reboot ships to you, with free delivery in the Omaha area.

The trade is simple. Dropship means no inventory and no minimum, a higher unit price, and a catalog of the platform's blends with your label. A bulk roaster means cash tied up in stock, a lower unit price, and a coffee you can make your own. Decide which business you are building before you compare prices, because the two price lists are not measuring the same thing.

Organic on the bag depends on the roaster's certificate

If you want the USDA organic seal, the roaster's certification matters more than yours. Under the organic regulations at 7 CFR 205.101, as amended by the Strengthening Organic Enforcement rule that took effect on March 19, 2024, an operation that only buys and sells organic products already sealed and labeled for retail sale can be exempt from certification. The certifier Oregon Tilth reads it this way for brand owners: if you hire a certified co packer to make and label your organic product and you only sell the finished retail packages, you do not need your own certificate, but the co packer must be certified and your product must be listed on its organic certificate. If you buy green coffee yourself and ship it to the roaster, you are handling organic ingredients and you need to be certified.

So ask for the certificate and look for your SKU on it. Among the roasters we read, Joe's Garage Coffee in Kent, Washington lists USDA and WSDA Organic, Fair Trade, Kosher Check and SQF. Specialty Java states it is a USDA Certified Organic Handler and warns buyers to be suspicious of roasters that claim organic coffee without being one. Homestead Coffee Roasters in Pennsylvania calls itself a Certified Organic Roastery. On the other side, Lucky Goat says openly that it is awaiting Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance audits and cannot yet label coffee that way, and one roaster describes its beans as organic and fair trade in marketing copy without naming a certificate. The word on a website is not the certificate.

We do not do regulatory classification. Confirm the organic and Fair Trade position with your certifier before you print.

What the bag has to say

Your name goes on the bag, but the rules decide how. Under 21 CFR 101.5, a packaged food must name the manufacturer, packer or distributor, and when you did not roast the coffee your name has to be qualified with a phrase such as Distributed by or Manufactured for, followed by a street address, city, state and ZIP code. Some roasters add their own line: Reboot requires every bag to carry Roasted by Reboot Roasting, Omaha, NE, along with the weight and whole bean or ground. Ask each roaster what it requires on your label before you design it.

The net weight belongs on the front panel, in the bottom 30% of the label, under 21 CFR 101.7. Plain roasted coffee usually qualifies for the Nutrition Facts exemption for foods with insignificant amounts of nutrients in 21 CFR 101.9(j)(4), but only if the label and the advertising make no nutrition claims. A mushroom or functional coffee that promises energy or focus gives that exemption up.

Be careful with origin. Most green coffee sold in the US is imported, so an unqualified Made in USA claim is hard to support under the FTC's all or virtually all standard. US Customs has ruled that roasting substantially transforms green coffee for government procurement purposes, but that is a different rule. Roasted in the USA is the accurate phrase for a coffee roasted here from imported beans; confirm the wording with counsel.

What to send a coffee roaster for a real quote

Send every roaster the same brief: the format (whole bean, ground, pods, cold brew or instant), roast level and origin or blend direction, fill size, stock bag with label or printed bag, first quantity and the quantity you expect in six months, organic or Fair Trade if you need it, and whether they ship to you or to your customers. Ask for price at two quantities, because the gap shows how much of the first quote is setup, and ask what the price excludes, the way TiA does in writing.

Then ask when the clock starts, because the published lead times hide it. Three Rivers quotes 4 to 6 weeks for pods after final artwork and roast approval. Reboot allows 1 to 2 weeks and will not start until your labels are in hand. Joe's Garage publishes both ends: reorders typically ship within three weeks, new custom packaging can take up to six. Lucky Goat produces most orders in 10 days or less and La Vela Coffee Roasters in Miami ships most private label orders in 3 to 5 business days. A fast roast is not a fast launch if the bag or the pod lid artwork is still in approval.

For cold brew, check what the supplier actually makes. Joe's Garage and Pod Pack make cold brew pitcher packs, and Rising Tide Roast Collaborative in Austin brews cold brew to your recipe weekly and kegs it. A canned ready to drink cold brew is a beverage co packing job, closer to our co packers guide than to a roaster. For a vendor by vendor shortlist, read the best private label coffee roasters for small business.

Suppliers writes that brief from a plain English description, sends it to the shortlisted roasters and keeps their answers side by side in the same units, so a per pound quote from a small roaster and a per box price from a dropship platform can be compared on what they actually include.