Canadian roasters have three main ways to buy green coffee: import it themselves, buy from a U.S. importer, or buy from an importer based in Canada. Each option has trade-offs in cost, paperwork, lead time and risk.
Option 1: Import directly from origin
Importing yourself can give you the lowest price per kilo and a direct relationship with producers, but it comes with real work:
- Minimum volumes, often a full container or a large shared shipment
- Pre-payment or financing months before the coffee arrives
- Customs brokerage, freight, warehousing and food import requirements, including the licensing rules for food importers under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations
- Quality risk if the arrival sample does not match the pre-shipment sample
This route makes sense for large roasters with stable, predictable volume.
Option 2: Buy from a U.S. importer
U.S. importers offer wide selection and convenient online buying. For Canadian roasters, the drawbacks are cross-border shipping, brokerage fees, currency exposure to the U.S. dollar and longer delivery times. Recent trade tensions have also made pricing harder to predict for coffee that passes through the United States.
Option 3: Buy from a Canadian importer
A Canadian importer handles the import side for you and sells from stock in Canada:
- Invoicing in Canadian dollars
- No cross-border paperwork on your side
- Shorter lead times from a Canadian warehouse
- Smaller minimums, often a single sack
How Tantito Trading Corp works
Tantito Trading Corp is a Canadian-owned importer based in Vancouver. Our sister company, Tantito México, sources and exports coffee at origin, so we control the chain from Mexican farm to Canadian roastery. Roasters can buy a single sack, request samples with cupping reports, and ask us to source specific Mexican farms or profiles.
Questions to ask any green coffee supplier
- Where is the coffee stored, and how long will delivery take?
- What is the minimum order?
- Do you provide cupping reports and SCA scores?
- Which certifications does each lot hold, and who certifies them?
- Can I get a sample before buying?
Ready to compare? Request samples or read how to buy wholesale.