I have a question regarding coffee freshness regarding grocery stores, but My question is slightly unique. If you have seen any of my posts, you will know that I work at a small grocery store with a great coffee selection, mostly small local roasters. Lately, I have been reaching out to different roasters across the country and trying to expand our selection to places from other states, and I've run into the same issue from a few different roasters. I think it was three or four of them asked me how long it takes for us to go through a coffee order, which is normally in the 30 bag range. Some times we will sell all 30 bags in a week or two, but there are lots of times when the coffee sits for months without selling.

Two of the roasters told me that if we were to order from them, they require that we pull all up there coffee after 6 weeks. I completely understand the freshness aspect, but I'm just wondering how other grocery stores ensure fresh coffee And how they order from the micro-roasters with rules like that. Does anyone work for a store like whole foods? I'm curious what they do with the coffee after a certain amount of time since it's not like they can turn it into cold brew.

I don't work at a grocery store but I frequent several that have good selections of roasters. Prior to the pandemic I bought pretty much all of my coffee from those stores as I could usually find beans that were roasted within the last week. The Whole Foods stores fell into that category. I never buy my coffee there any more as the dates are rarely less than a month out and often twice that. As far as I'm concerned Whole Foods no longer carries coffee. Another local store, a non-chain co-op, does much better in that regard. Their coffees are much more likely to be current. There's a third store I used to buy coffee from but my post-pandemic patterns of movement have altered such that I never go by that store any more. Like so many things I now purchase virtually all my coffee online and have it shipped.

To me coffee is like bread. It should be pulled after some period of time or sold at a significant discount. But that's not usually what happens. I have wondered why roasters don't demand that their coffee be removed from the shelves after a certain point. Blue Bottle used to do that. Their coffees at Whole Foods were typically just a few days post roast. Now the Blue Bottle at Whole Foods is not only older but is some unrecognizable line of coffees that don't even appear on the Blue Bottle website.

Times change and the pandemic has changed a lot things. But I'm happy to hear that there are in fact roasters who care enough to insist that their product be pulled after a certain date. Good for them! Can you provide a list of those roasters?

I was just at a large grocery store in Saint Louis that sold numerous local roasters. They seemed to have high sell through because a lot of the bags indicated roast dates within the last week or two. A good time to take a bag home for espresso.

Jpender makes a great observation. A lot of roasters have a grocery line and a roastery line. Blue Bottle does this with a very dumbed down line they sell at Whole Food, Target, etc. The bag is cheaper feeling than McCafe, the descriptions are sparse, and it is almost as if they are hiding their logo on it.

Interesting enough, I've experienced higher volume grocery stores having fresher roasts than the roastery itself (when walking in off the street, not ordering online.) More sell through.

I think it is commendable that some roasters require their coffees to be pulled. If that does happen they may not be interested in selling to you again or requiring a smaller order. No one likes to get product back via their own policy or other reasons.

Drewskie wrote:And how they order from the micro-roasters with rules like that.

They don't. Usually the grocery store has the leverage and dictates the terms, not the little coffee roaster. Probably a much different dynamic when you are a small grocery store and are trying to win supply from a coffee roaster versus the roaster trying to win business from you

Whole Foods used to be a lot better here, even out of state stuff like Counter Culture or Stumptown was fresh, could fairly easily find bags a few days to a week or so off roast. Now, Counter Culture etc can have dates months prior. Same for local, last couple times at WF I check the coffee section out of curiosity and even local roasters are like 2 months out or maybe 3-4 weeks if your super lucky. Something changed like 4 years ago or so with that. WF used to also have a way bigger roaster selection, now it's borderline generic. Really just same places year after year. Counter, Stumptown, and few local roasters. They carry Panther here but no point when I could just ship Panther to house vs a 3 month old bag.

Similar for Fresh Market, used to be a lot of Fresh coffee within a week or two, be lucky to find a bag from any roaster that isn't 2 months out now if they date, sometimes just has a use by/best by date on it now.

Hard to blame either roaster or store as we're the outliers, 99% of other grocery shoppers are happy to buy whatever, they don't cater to us but those buyers. Avg person could careless about a bag months old.

Drewskie wrote:I have a question regarding coffee freshness regarding grocery stores, but My question is slightly unique. If you have seen any of my posts, you will know that I work at a small grocery store with a great coffee selection, mostly small local roasters... I think it was three or four of them asked me how long it takes for us to go through a coffee order, which is normally in the 30 bag range. Some times we will sell all 30 bags in a week or two, but there are lots of times when the coffee sits for months without selling.

Here's what I did back in the day. My co-op specialty food store was in a midwestern collage town. I was the first store in our wholesale network to establish a whole-bean coffee department. Starbucks was a couple of stores in Seattle, and Whole Foods was one store in Austin at the time. I was exposing my members to something that few had ever experienced: fresh-from-the-roaster coffee for drip-brew, provided by carefully selected people who had been in the business of buying high-end greens for many, many years, and who knew how to roast.
The coffees arrived in either 5# or 20# aluminized mylar bags with a one way valve (hot-packing roasted coffee beans in bags like that was a new technology), and the beans got sold in bulk out of large glass jars, to be ground by the customer in the store with our commercial grinder, or taken home whole. We educated everybody about the deterioration in flavor that became increasingly noticeable after ten days - one intention of which was to encourage people to return to the store every week for their "fix" (G_D_the pusher man!). If a coffee was still in the store much into the second week, I'd blow it out at a discount and not reorder that type again.
I sold four or five full-cityish roast coffees consistently, maybe 50 or 60 lbs/week.
All this sounds pretty gonzo today, but the mission was to provide a fresh coffee experience from high end roasters at a premium price to an audience raised on Folgers and 8 O'Clock. Mission accomplished - my store was already a beacon for things special and hard to come by elsewhere. The coffee department was a big help in that.
Here's a couple of things for an independent specialty retailer to ponder. The international competition for highest quality green beans has increased exponentially just in the time frame that the HB website has been in existence. What chance does a "great local roaster" have of getting really good greens from some wholesaler they have to buy from, even if they manage to learn how to roast them decently? (a skill that many don't master BTW) What's the value to the store's image and reputation of having a bunch of "name" roaster bags on the shelf, at higher than mass market prices, even if some sit for months? If you buy a bag and like it, but the next one doesn't taste so great, what does a coffee newbie learn? What does an experienced coffee nut think of you and your store? I'd encourage you to think through what you want to do with your coffee sales...

I agree with everything you said, but I was asking this question from the opposite side. As a tiny grocery store, and more of the middleman between roasters and consumers, I'm really unsure how to handle coffee that is losing freshness. Most roasters are just able to use the copy in the store before it gets "old", but as a grocery store we don't really have that luxury. Most consumers that are purchasing the hiring coffees want really fresh roast eggs, and I don't blame them. I'm just wondering what to do when the coffee sits for a little too long and customers no longer want it. We normally discount it a few dollars, but the markup on coffee is already really small as it is.

jpender wrote:I don't work at a grocery store but I frequent several that have good selections of roasters. Prior to the pandemic I bought pretty much all of my coffee from those stores as I could usually find beans that were roasted within the last week. The Whole Foods stores fell into that category. I never buy my coffee there any more as the dates are rarely less than a month out and often twice that. As far as I'm concerned Whole Foods no longer carries coffee. Another local store, a non-chain co-op, does much better in that regard. Their coffees are much more likely to be current. There's a third store I used to buy coffee from but my post-pandemic patterns of movement have altered such that I never go by that store any more. Like so many things I now purchase virtually all my coffee online and have it shipped.

To me coffee is like bread. It should be pulled after some period of time or sold at a significant discount. But that's not usually what happens. I have wondered why roasters don't demand that their coffee be removed from the shelves after a certain point. Blue Bottle used to do that. Their coffees at Whole Foods were typically just a few days post roast. Now the Blue Bottle at Whole Foods is not only older but is some unrecognizable line of coffees that don't even appear on the Blue Bottle website.

Times change and the pandemic has changed a lot things. But I'm happy to hear that there are in fact roasters who care enough to insist that their product be pulled after a certain date. Good for them! Can you provide a list of those roasters?

I agree with everything you said, but I was asking this question from the opposite side. As a tiny grocery store, and more of the middleman between roasters and consumers, I'm really unsure how to handle coffee that is losing freshness. Most roasters are just able to use the copy in the store before it gets "old", but as a grocery store we don't really have that luxury. Most consumers that are purchasing the hiring coffees want really fresh roast eggs, and I don't blame them. I'm just wondering what to do when the coffee sits for a little too long and customers no longer want it. We normally discount it a few dollars, but the markup on coffee is already really small as it is.

Trjelenc wrote:They don't. Usually the grocery store has the leverage and dictates the terms, not the little coffee roaster. Probably a much different dynamic when you are a small grocery store and are trying to win supply from a coffee roaster versus the roaster trying to win business from you

I think this is what it mostly comes down to. I

Curious what you perspective on reducing selection in an effort to get more turnover is?

Maybe this doesn't apply to you: there's a grocery store that I go to (small local chain, a few stores, kinda hippy selection in general) that has a pretty solid selection of local roasters, but there's usually only a couple that are less than a month old. I would gladly trade selection for freshness. It's annoying to have to inspect dozens of bags to find one good one. They probably carry more than 100 coffees.

Maybe most coffee buyers don't care about freshness? Maybe some of the more random brands have devoted fans? Or most people just buy Peet's because that's what they've heard of?

Anyway, I wonder if they cut down to, say, 20 coffees, if they could actually keep them fresh. Probably wishful thinking, but maybe some curation (like bookstores do with a little staff review on a note card) would encourage "normal" people to try some of the specialty brands. More realistically, they probably keep Peet's (and just let those customers do their thing), but for customers like the ones on this forum, I don't think they need like 80 specialty (and specialty-ish) coffees, it seems to defeat the purpose. The people buying specialty probably usually check the date?