Homestead Coffee Roasters achieves 1,100% ROI with BarTender

Homestead Coffee Roasters is a distinguished certified-organic boutique coffee roastery nestled in the scenic town of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. Established in 2006 by brothers Trevor Lewis and Michael Lewis, Homestead Coffee Roasters prides itself on being a family-owned and operated business. With over 74 esteemed partners located throughout the U.S. Northeast, Homestead maintains complete in-house operations, ensuring unparalleled quality control and customer satisfaction.

As the Co-Owner and Roastmaster, Trevor Lewis dedicates his expertise to scrutinizing coffee beans from their worldwide suppliers, conducting roast level experiments, and hand-picking the finest beans to supply to their partners. His top priority is to ensure that their partners receive unmatched coffee profiles that meet the highest standards and to keep their patrons happily caffeinated.

Homestead proactively manages supply chain challenges in the post-COVID landscape by strategically purchasing additional inventory to ensure uninterrupted operations. Fortunately, the global coffee industry benefits from a natural supply of coffee beans harvested at different times in various regions worldwide. This reliable supply chain enables coffee roasters to consistently provide coffee enthusiasts with their favorite brew, even during uncertain times. However, sourcing coffee beans from suppliers is only half the journey.

Challenge: Time and Resource Constraints with Labeling

Homestead Coffee Roasters faced significant business challenges in meeting the unique labeling needs of their more than 74 partners across the US Northeast. With some partners requiring private labeling while others leveraged Homestead’s branding, Homestead had to manage the daunting challenge of creating and managing distinct labels with each partners’ unique information, graphics, and branding requirements. As a small team working around the clock, Homestead had little room for labeling errors or delays in shipments due to unlabeled products. Initially, they outsourced their labeling operations to cut costs, but this tradeoff meant less flexibility and agility in designing and printing labels as partners’ needs advanced. This was not sustainable as the need for printing labels on demand became more pervasive to match the speed of their evolving coffee roast profiles. Homestead Coffee sought a way to bring their branding and processes in-house to gain operational control, reduce costs, and increase agency amongst themselves.

Solution: Labeling Agility Increases Operational Excellence with +1,100% ROI

The desire to stay partner-centric while maintaining business excellence and agility meant that Trevor and his team needed a versatile solution that would meet their labeling needs while also reducing their operating costs. With the abundance of support materials and onboarding webinars that came with BarTender, getting started with the tool was a simple process. With BarTender, Homestead was able to designate a single team member to design their labels and then import them into BarTender’s label design interface for the rest of the team to modify and print as needed. Homestead’s decision to bring their labeling operations in-house allowed them to take full control over their labeling process resulting in optimized turnaround times, streamlined costs, and increased flexibility over the holistic roast production process. Homestead Coffee Roasters realized an ROI exceeding 1,100% by leveraging BarTender to fulfill all their labeling requirements while maintaining lean operations. BarTender allowed Trevor and his team to overcome their labeling challenges and to continue serving happy customers.