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Eric Faust founded the Duluth Coffee Company (DCC) in 2012 with a $10,000 loan and a lot of passion for coffee. The company was a classic garage startup, where Faust had a 3-kilogram roaster cranking up limited batches of coffee and selling them to local coffee shops and restaurants. Then Faust rented a store in downtown Duluth, Minnesota. He turned it into a coffee shop with an upgraded 12-kilogram roaster that occupied a central spot at the café. As Faust was developing direct relationships with coffee growers, he realized that DCC could play a bigger role in improving farmers' livelihoods by buying more of their coffee. Faust decided to upgrade to a 70-kilogram roaster to be custom built and installed in the café. With the increase in the volume of the coffee he roasted and sold, the company would need to have a new distribution strategy. Sam Levar, the newly hired marketing manager, developed plans for a new distribution strategy to be run by his boss. Levar felt that the status quo inhibited the growth of the business and limited profitability in the long run. Faust and his three employees were tied up running the café while sourcing the coffee beans, roasting, prospecting, packaging, warehousing, fulfilling orders, invoicing, and managing accounts receivables and cash flows. Levar suggested outsourcing the distribution function to an experienced distributor(s). Such a decision would help the company have higher sales volumes and better long-term profitability. However, Faust was wary they might lose control over the brand he built from the ground up. Their conversation left Levar considering the pros and cons of preserving the status quo versus recruiting experienced distributors or a wholesaler. Is it time for a new distribution strategy? What should Levar recommend for Faust?

The Locally Laid Egg Company is a family-owned company based out of Duluth, Minnesota. The company was established in 2012 as the first commercial grade pasture-raised egg company in the upper Midwest. In the first two years of operation, the company already had so much demand that it was unable to keep up. The husband and wife ownership team of Jason and Lucie Amundsen held a firm belief that people do business with like-minded people. The Amundsens contended that consumers were warming to the idea that societal values have to be part of your business and that consumers were more willing to buy from businesses that were responsible stewards of our world. The company implemented a number of green initiatives and made efforts to support the local economy. Locally Laid Eggs had partnered with Amish farmers in Iowa, Indiana, and Minnesota. The partnership was mutually beneficial as it leveraged the strong ethical farming standards of the Amish with the marketing expertise of the Amundsens. The Amish farmers were interested in raising eggs to LoLa's pasture-raised standards, distributing them locally, and selling them under the Locally Laid brand. The Amundsens were amused their Amish partners were not deterred by the sassy and unorthodox brand name, but rather saw it as an opportunity. The Amish did the work of sustainably farming eggs from pasture raised hens and Locally Laid helped them get these eggs into stores. Jason was getting concerned he was expanding too fast. In August 2014, on the company's second anniversary, he got a letter from a Pennsylvania Amish farm seeking a partnership. The letter prompted him to consider his strategy. Should he focus on his local Duluth farm and existing contracts or should he add on another contract and explore the Pennsylvania opportunity? What were his best options for longer-term sustainable growth?