When RocketCup Coffee Company set out to grow their wholesale business, LocalLine connected the Cattaraugus, NY roaster directly with local grocers and helped them land in more than 90 new stores in under four months.
Key takeaways
- RocketCup Coffee Company is a specialty coffee roaster in Cattaraugus, New York, with two cafés and a wholesale program for regional grocers.
- After outgrowing Shopify on the wholesale side, RocketCup moved its business onto LocalLine to sell directly into local grocers including Tops Friendly Markets.
- LocalLine is the backbone of how RocketCup has scaled to over 90 stores in four months, handling everything from ordering to invoicing to payments.
RocketCup Coffee Company started with a simple idea: source the top 5% of bean quality in the world, roast them in small batches, and provide a premium coffee for their community. From its headquarters in Cattaraugus, New York, the company roasts specialty blends, runs two cafés, and produces a growing line of college coffees for schools like Syracuse, Buffalo, and Penn State.
Three and a half years in, with six full-time and more than twenty part-time staff, RocketCup had built a strong direct-to-consumer brand on Shopify. What it wanted next was wholesale.
"We were looking for the best way to expand the wholesale side of the business," says Brodie Hill of RocketCup Coffee Company.
The problem was that Shopify was built for the direct-to-consumer side of the business, not for selling into grocery chains. Landing in stores meant building relationships with store managers, getting products into a retailer's ordering system, and handling invoicing and payment across dozens of locations. RocketCup needed infrastructure for that, not another consumer storefront.
Selling Direct to Tops Friendly Markets
The first big opportunity was with Tops Friendly Markets, a 150-location grocer headquartered in Buffalo. Tops relies on LocalLine to bring local vendors directly into its stores, cutting out the traditional distributor middleman. For a small roaster, that direct path was the difference between getting on shelves and getting lost in a distributor's catalog.
"LocalLine works with small local businesses like RocketCup and creates a seamless connection with Tops, which allowed us to 10x our wholesale program in the first three months on the platform," Brodie says.
It is the same model that helped Maplewood Sweets land in 41 Tops locations and Pizza Amore reach 45 stores in six months. LocalLine removes the distributor layer, giving producers direct access to buyers and full control over pricing, delivery, and the relationship itself.
For RocketCup, that direct line started with the basics being handled correctly. Their full catalog lives in a Tops-specific price list, with UPC codes already mapped into the Tops system.
"All our products are loaded into a Tops-specific product list. This makes the invoice process very easy," Brodie says. "Also the ability to have the UPC in the Tops system. We couldn't have the Tops relationship without that."
What a Typical Week Looks Like
The clearest picture of the value is in how RocketCup runs a normal week. Through their LocalLine account representative, they are connected directly with store managers and given the contact information they need to build relationships and grow their footprint store by store.
When a manager is ready to order, there is no back-and-forth setup. Because every product already lives in the Tops ordering system, RocketCup can create and send an invoice immediately, with no extra paperwork.
What makes it work for a roaster specifically is how the ordering process fits production. As orders come in, RocketCup generates a consolidated list of every product needed across all the stores and hands it straight to their roaster.
"This allows us to roast specifically for each order, ensuring stores receive some of the freshest coffee possible," Brodie says.
The invoices generated through LocalLine are exactly what store receivers expect, which keeps deliveries and product check-ins quick. The result is one connected process that runs from the order, to the roast, to the delivery, to getting paid.
Accounting That Reconciles Itself
The back end is where a lot of wholesale programs quietly fall apart. Chasing payments across dozens of grocery accounts is the kind of admin that grows faster than the revenue behind it.
For RocketCup, LocalLine closes that loop. The platform provides weekly remittance reports that can be matched against invoices and marked as paid in QuickBooks.
"Overall, the system creates a streamlined process from sales and production to delivery and payment collection, allowing us to focus more time on growing the business and supporting our retail partners," Brodie says.
That visibility connects back to the original problem. The wholesale side of the business was the thing RocketCup most wanted to grow, and it was also the side most likely to bury a small team in reconciliation work. Knowing what is owed, what has been paid, and what is coming removes the exact friction that would have capped the program's growth.
Customer Support That Knows Selling to Grocery
A direct-to-retailer model only works if someone is smoothing the path on both sides. For RocketCup, that has been their LocalLine representative, David, the same name Maplewood Sweets and Pizza Amore both credit for fast, hands-on support.
"Our representative David takes care of everything on the back end," Brodie says. "He has a great relationship with us and with the team at Tops, making our onboarding process and support very simple."
That relationship is part of what turns a software platform into a working sales channel. Having someone who understands both the producer and the retailer means RocketCup spends its time roasting and building store relationships, not untangling logistics.
The Difference: 90+ Stores in Four Months
The numbers tell the story of how fast a direct-to-retailer model can move when the infrastructure is in place. RocketCup grew its wholesale program tenfold in its first three months on LocalLine, and reached more than 90 grocery stores within four.
"LocalLine gave us the ability to sell into 90-plus stores in four months, where normally a distributor would be the only other option," Brodie says.
The growth came from exactly where a wholesale program wants it to: bigger orders and more accounts. Asked what drove the change, Brodie points to "the larger order sizes, and 90-plus added wholesale accounts."
For a specialty roaster three and a half years into the business, that is the kind of expansion that usually requires giving up margin and control to a distributor. RocketCup kept both.
"It is the perfect next step in growing your business," Brodie says.
RocketCup Coffee set out to grow its wholesale side, and built a grocery program that reaches more than 90 stores while keeping its relationships, its pricing, and its margins its own. If you produce a packaged food or beverage product and want to get it onto more shelves without handing the relationship to a distributor, LocalLine gives you everything you need in one place. Book a demo with our team to see how it works for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions about selling CPG products to grocery stores
How does a small producer sell directly to grocery stores without a distributor?
Retailers like Tops Friendly Markets use LocalLine to source from local vendors directly. The producer manages their own price list, invoicing, and deliveries through the platform, which removes the distributor layer and lets them keep control of pricing and the buyer relationship. RocketCup Coffee used this model to reach more than 90 stores in four months.
What is the best platform for managing wholesale grocery orders?
A wholesale platform should handle retailer-specific price lists, UPC mapping into the store's ordering system, invoicing that matches what receivers expect, and remittance reports that reconcile against accounting software. LocalLine is built for local food and beverage producers selling into grocery, foodservice, and direct channels from one system.
Can LocalLine work for coffee roasters and other CPG producers?
Yes. LocalLine supports packaged goods producers selling into retail, from coffee and value-added foods to specialty grocery items. Producers manage orders, production lists, invoicing, and payments in one place. RocketCup Coffee uses it to roast to order and supply more than 90 Tops Friendly Markets locations.
How does LocalLine help with invoicing and getting paid?
LocalLine generates invoices the moment an order comes in and provides weekly remittance reports that can be matched against those invoices and marked as paid in accounting tools like QuickBooks. This gives producers clear visibility into what is owed and when payment is coming, instead of chasing dozens of grocery accounts by hand.
