Roasts vs. Products: What's the difference?
Creating "Roasts" in RoasterTools can be confusing, especially since you are then going in and creating (what feels like) a very similar item in the "Products" section. This brief tutorial will explain the difference between the two entries and give some insight into leveraging "Roasts" for growth.
The roast section is where you will enter each of your distinctive products without branding. These can be considered your "production specs".
The product section is where you will enter each distinctive product including branding. These can be considered your "finished goods specs".
For instance. Let's say you have a single origin Colombian coffee that you roast. You sell this Colombian in-house as a single origin under your own brand. You also sell this coffee to three different wholesale customers. One customer sells it as their "House Coffee" under their own brand. Another customer sells it as a single origin Colombia, but under their own brand. The last customer uses it as their espresso and sells it on the shelf as "House Espresso".
On the production side, this is all the same coffee. It starts with the same green and roasts through the same roast curve.
On the wholesale side, these are each unique finished goods. While the same coffee, they may require their own distinct label and have their own pricing structure that is unique to each wholesale customer.
Once the item has all the production specs (roast identification, weight loss, etc) entered into the "Roast" section, those production specs can be then applied to multiple unique finished goods products in the "Products" section.
Where this feature becomes most valuable is in building accounts for which a roaster is doing private label, toll roasting, or exclusive branding. This is a great service to add-in for wholesale customers, but can be confusing and prone to errors in production.
By using this feature you will be able to change production specs (such as greens used) simply through the "Roast" section, rather than through multiple data-entry points in the finished goods "Product" section.