Small batches, big ambitions — how a Kalamazoo company became a go-to for beverage startups nationwide

KALAMAZOO, MI — A contract beverage manufacturer takes your formula for chilled coffee, juice, soda, beer, sparkling water, or nutritional drinks, and produces it in mass quantities for you.

A third-party logistics center receives, inventories, warehouses, and manages the process of shipping goods from a seller to a buyer — typically from a manufacturer to a retailer. It is often called a “fulfillment center” and uses technology, e-commerce, and advanced systems to process orders and efficiently spare its clients from having to do that work.

The Good Trade Depot is a new Kalamazoo-based Contract Beverage Manufacturer & Fulfillment Center that has found a niche producing smaller lots of products (say, 2,300 16-oz. cans of product, versus 50,000) for small beverage companies that are trying to grow. And after only about eight years in business, it is considering its second major expansion.

“We are weighing a few different options there,” Owner/Operator Matt White says of 19,000 square feet of space the Good Trade Depot leases at  701 E. Michigan Ave. in downtown Kalamazoo. That is the former brewing space at the rear of the Thunderbird tavern and restaurant, which had not been used since September of 2019, when the location closed as Arcadia Ales. White began leasing the space in February of 2024. “We are kind of scaling pretty quickly. So we’re working on finding some space.”

Why small batches matter

His business co-manufactures, cans, and packages a range of non-alcoholic beverages, including energy drinks, coffees, juices, specialized water, protein drinks, and functional beverages (those with nutritional benefits). It also warehouses some clients’ products and supplies.

The enterprise was started by White in his garage in 2017 and somehow managed to grow as the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. It evolved from his garage to about 3,000 square feet of commercial space on Miller Road. In 2024, it expanded into the 19,000 square feet it now uses downtown.

“There’s not really a lot of people doing what we do,” says White, age 31. “So it makes us unique.”

Finding a niche others overlooked

It is a niche business that is contracted to help others get up and going. It partners with companies from all over the country to fulfill small orders of say 4,000 to 6,000 cans. And it produces small batches of beverages for a few offshore accounts that need their products distributed in the United States. About 95 percent of its customers are out-of-state product owners who have found Good Trade Depot through word-of-mouth and through the beverage industry grapevine.

“We’re kind of a one-stop shop,” White says. “We can make your beverage, can it, warehouse it, pack it, ship it, pretty much do whatever you want us to do to it.” 

White is a 2013 graduate of Sturgis High School whose entrepreneurial spirit kicked in after a few years of study at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, the University of Detroit Mercy, and the supply chain management program at Western Michigan University (2014-16). He dropped out of WMU in 2016 and applied for all kinds of jobs. He landed one doing online merchandising for a toy distribution company based in Plainwell, 

“I was essentially a liaison between brands and retailers,” White says. “So I would work with brand owners and retail buyers.”

He says he learned a lot and that work opened his eyes to “how products moved and got to the end consumers and things like that. I kind of enjoyed it and started to implement some of my own thoughts. And then I thought, ‘Hey, this is a pretty good one. Let’s jump out and try it on our own.'”

In 2017, he started buying liquidated pallets of general merchandise via Amazon — including freezer chests, recliner chairs, vacuums, and other things. Then he sold them on eBay. Early in 2020, he landed a contract to help manufacture cold-brewed coffee. That came along with his first contract to do warehousing and fulfillment work for a coconut oil company based in Kenya. He says people he met in the toy industry led him to a Michigan man who lives in Kenya and owns a coconut farm there.

“They landed a shipping container of product to me, and I started in my garage,” White says. “That took up a lot of space, so I started looking for warehousing or renting space.”

That initial product, called Kentaste Coconut Oil, was a virgin coconut oil for use in cooking or use as a hair and skin moisturizer. The company has now transitioned from oil to coconut chips.

“They were landing all of their product with us, and I was handling all of their e-commerce order fulfillment and then getting pallets prepped for business-to-business orders, to retailers and things like that,” White says.

The coffee contract started with an agreement to handle logistics from the Kalamazoo location of  Rose Umber. White says, “It was another shipping container situation where I would receive pallets of 60- to 150-lb. bags of green coffee for them. I would warehouse that, and they would sell a few bags here and there.” He says the Grand Rapids-based company also produced and was canning a Nitro cold-brew coffee out of its warehouse location on Miller Road. White says he learned the canning process by helping them do that for a couple of years, starting in 2020.

A beverage for everyone, even your dog

Good Trade Depot was primarily a one-man operation until December of 2022, when White recruited a high school friend to develop a production strategy and continuous improvement systems. Amber Johnson, an industrial engineering graduate of WMU, is now director of engineering for the company, with White saying, “She’s the real genius of the operation. She had worked at Anheuser-Busch for six years down in St. Louis. She was doing lead forecasting and did data analytics down there.”

In 2024, the business also hired Caelan Deater to oversee mechanical maintenance and serve as director of brewing. He is part of a strong WMU connection, with a bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Craft Brewing.

Among the interesting products Good Trade Depot has been contracted to co-produce, can, package, and ship are the following:

• A new purified water called 67 Water. The name takes advantage of an online meme that is popular with young people. It has been promoted since mid-summer by a rising high school athlete who lives in Kentucky

• Circle House Coffee, a Miami-based nitro cold-brewed product owned by former Detroit Lions player Stephen Tulloch

• A test order of unique dog waters. Produced for a Chicago-based start-up company, dog waters are typically a bone broth that is sold in cans for dogs, or waters mixed with such things as natural pumpkin flavoring

• And Fizzy Moo, a type of flavored, carbonated milk beverage that appears to be gaining popularity in Vietnam and some other Asian countries. Good Trade Depot is manufacturing an initial batch of the product to allow some American entrepreneurs to test that market.  

Approaching $1 million in annual sales

In the meantime, the company is approaching $1 million in annual sales this year and is formulating plans to build its own location, one with at least 30,000 square feet of space. The location has not yet been identified, but is expected to be in Kalamazoo and include separate production areas for small and large orders. The growth of Good Trade Depot has been bolstered by the financial support of an investor who is poised to continue to reinvest in its growth, White says. The company has also benefited from a fertile local entrepreneurial ecosystem that includes investor pitch events and networking help from economic development organization Southwest Michigan First and others.

“I want to be able to take on a few of those clients who are doing 2 million to 5 million cans a year,” White says, “but still stay mission-focused on these little guys because the goal of that is to have these little guys become 2 million to 3 million situations.”

The smallest manufacturing job the company is currently contracted to fill is for 2,300 16-oz. cans. The minimum job for other U.S. contract beverage manufacturers is somewhere from 30,000 to 60,000 cans, White says. The next expansion should come with a need for White to grow the operation’s eight-person staff.

“I began with Good Trade Depot because they were in connection with Western Michigan University,” says Operations Specialist Bridget Arnesen, “And with my entrepreneurial engineering degree, we came in, and we got to partner with them for a senior project.”

She joined the company a little more than a year ago, before graduating from WMU in 2025 with a degree in engineering management technology.

Looking ahead

Asked what she thinks will make the company successful, Arnesen says, “I think it’s our authenticity and the fact that we’re very genuine and caring about our clients, and we’re really trying to give a community feel.” From a straight business perspective, she says she thinks the company is well-positioned in the beverage manufacturing industry because its niche is non-alcoholic products. “Especially right now,” she says. “I think a lot of Gen-Z is going into the non-alcoholic space. So it’s really a growing industry and a little part of the beverage manufacturing world.”

White sees his company growing as a co-manufacturer of pilot products for large companies that want to test the market with a small amount of product before trying to scale it up for major production.

Speaking of small-batch contract beverage manufacturers, White says, “There aren’t a lot of these. That’s what I really didn’t realize when I got started. When I got started, it was just me and Amber (Johnson). So we’d do (orders for) like 4,000 cans. That was a pretty good amount of money to us at the time. I didn’t know there was nobody else in the country doing (willing to co-manufacture orders for) under 10,000 cans.”