ENDERLY COFFEE IS NOW AT WALMART!
- Oct 16, 2023
- 3 min read
We’ve been sitting on this one for a while and, honestly, it’s been a hard secret to keep! In fulfillment of our promise to make specialty coffee more accessible – not only in our community but now up and down the East Coast! – we are so excited to announce that Enderly Coffee now has a partnership to sell our beans on the shelves of every Walmart from Florida to Maine!
What does that mean for you, our customer?
Honestly, not much will change other than that you now have one more option when buying from Enderly. We couldn’t be more thrilled!
Why Walmart?
Our philosophy is that getting our coffee into the hands of more customers makes our business more sustainable – from the farmers who grow our coffee to the people who work in our production and retail facilities. Here are some of the things we’ve been able to do since launching this partnership:
Hire more part-time and full-time help at our roasting facility (which creates more jobs in our local community!)
Buy more coffee from our current partners (helping them create a more sustainable income, trust us that our farmers are rejoicing!)
Provide our full-time employees with health insurance support for the first time
Make specialty coffee more accessible to every member of our community
We may be a little biased, but we think everyone deserves to wake up to a fresh cup of Enderly Coffee each morning and this project brings us one step closer to realizing that vision!
How did this partnership get started?
In 2022, we were approached by a company that specializes in creating relationships between small businesses and big-box retailers like Sam’s Club and Walmart. They shared their story with us and asked if we wanted to be a part of a pilot program to put local coffee roasters on the shelves at Walmart. After some logistical questions and a few phone calls, we decided to give it a try!
The original pilot program put the bags from 92 roasters on the shelves at Walmart. This was part of a larger, nationwide rollout to test whether or not local coffee would sell.
After personally delivering our coffee to Walmart stores from Boone, North Carolina to Cheraw, South Carolina for a year, we were one of the top performing coffee companies from this original pilot. When we tell you we put in blood, sweat and tears… we mean it (don’t worry, none of it went into your coffee!)
Our success impressed the company we were partnered with and led to the relationship we have today – 100% fulfillment in all Walmart stores on the East Coast!
What will I be able to find on the shelves?
Enderly will be sending our top 4 performers to stock the shelves at Walmart. When you enter the coffee aisle, you should find us just above eye level (we worked our way up from the bottom shelf!) Here are the details:
Roasts: Brazil, State St. Colombian and direct-relationship Guatemala
Grind: Whole bean only
Availability: In-store, Store Pickup, and delivery are all available directly through Walmart!
Ultimately, our goal of “People First, Coffee Always” is something we strive toward every day. The thought of so many new smiling faces sipping their first taste of Enderly Coffee – and the even bigger grins of the people we can now more sustainably support – makes us feel really warm inside (kind of like drinking a warm cup of coffee!) Thank you for the support you have given us over the last 10+ years to get us to this place. We truly wouldn’t be here without you. Want to spread the word? Share this article with your friends and family who don’t live in Charlotte: tell them they can have Enderly now, too!
This announcement made me think about how much “access” changes habits — if it’s on a shelf during a normal grocery run, people actually try it instead of meaning to order later and forgetting. I wonder if you’ll see more folks experimenting at home (and then coming back to the cafe for the deeper menu). Total aside, but it’s the same way I’ll stumble into this site when I’m trying to make a quick choice without overthinking. Anyway, curious how you’ll keep the cafe vibe while scaling up.
Love the accessibility angle, but I’m also hoping the packaging makes the “what am I actually buying?” part super clear for people who don’t usually shop specialty. Origin/processing notes and a readable roast date go a long way in a big-box aisle. Totally unrelated, but the whole “making something niche feel approachable” thing reminds me of messing around with a fun ghibli ai filter and realizing how many people will try it if the barrier is low. Curious what blends/single-origins you’re putting on shelves first.
This kind of retail partnership feels like a sign that “specialty” is slowly becoming more normal, not just a niche thing you have to hunt down in certain neighborhoods. I’d be interested to hear how you’ll handle store-by-store variance (some Walmarts are great, others… not so much). Random aside: when I see launches like this I think of how product directories work — https://hrefgo.com is one place where new tools pop up and you can tell who’s ready for scale. Hope the rollout stays consistent up the coast.
The part about making the business more sustainable “from farmers to staff” is what stood out to me — scaling distribution can be messy, but the benefits can be real if it’s handled transparently. I’m curious if you’ll share more specifics later (like how you’re tracking quality or inventory flow). Side note: I’ve used tools like a cipher identifier tool where you infer what’s going on from patterns, and it feels similar to reading between the lines of big retail rollouts. Hope it stays a win for the producers too.
It’s cool to see a specialty roaster aiming for everyday accessibility without acting like the cafe experience is the only “right” way to buy beans. This kind of expansion always makes me wonder what the minimum quality bar is for grocery shelves vs direct-to-consumer. Weird comparison, but the mindset shift reminds me of chasing consistency in that blockblast puzzle game when the board gets tight. Excited to spot the bags locally.