Brewing Success: How Hatch Coffee Streamlines B2B Operations and Accelerates Payments with B2B Wave

What do freshly roasted coffee, Canada, and Venn diagrams have in common? Hatch Coffee and B2B Wave, of course. But how did we get there? Let’s rewind.  

It all began about nine years ago in Nigeria, where a sip of a handmade roast changed everything for founder and CEO Alfonso Tupaz. “It was almost like a calling card,” he recalls. At the time, Tupaz was the financial director in his family’s packaging business outside of Lagos, serving high-profile clients like Nestlé and Coca-Cola. After tasting that coffee, he saw an opportunity: merge exceptional coffee with efficiency.

In 2014, Tupaz leaped back to Toronto, where he grew up, and quickly began turning his vision into reality. Hatch Coffee was born in 2016, fueled by a passion for roasted coffee, but made its mark with a specialty cold brew, the must-have drink for coffee lovers back then.

Hatch Coffee has since evolved from a modest operation into a multi-product coffee powerhouse, adding award-winning specialty coffee roasts and premium plant milk to its catalog. With success came growing pains that undermined its core qualities: personal service and rapid fulfillment. Enter B2B Wave.

Today, with B2B Wave, Hatch Coffee nails order management, keeps customers happy, and aces financial management, all while staying true to their passion for coffee.

Challenge

In 2019, managing wholesale accounts while maintaining a personal touch was a breeze for Hatch Coffee. With a handful of customers, orders came in by email or phone, and Tupaz himself handled invoicing.

But as the business grew, so did complexity. Managing a booming operation with dozens of products, soaring orders, and hundreds of customers across Canada? It felt like while walking a tightrope—one slip could mean chaos.

Reaching out to every customer weekly for their orders started consuming hours from other essential tasks. Different pricing structures for distributors and wholesalers with unique needs (like ordering oat milk only or shipping outside the Greater Toronto Area) added another layer of complexity.

The real headache, however, was invoicing and payments. “It would take me hours at the end of the week,” says Tupaz. The system was straightforward at first. The company required customers to save a credit card on file. But here’s the catch: when payments didn’t go through, or customers switched credit cards, the follow-up snowballed into hours of administrative work. “It really became a hassle,” Tupaz notes. Something had to change. And that’s when B2B Wave came in.

Solution

B2B Wave emerged as the tool Hatch Coffee needed to eliminate complexity and amplify operational efficiency.

The feature the team loved the most? Privacy groups. It directly addressed the challenge of managing diverse pricing structures and product visibility, giving Hatch Coffee complete control over both. Now, they could offer exclusive pricing to partners, limit certain products (like oat milk) to specific buyers, and tailor their catalog for each customer—all from their B2B platform. At first, the concept took some time to grasp. Once Tupaz saw the feature as “just a whole bunch of Venn diagrams,” where specific customer groups form the intersection of exclusive product access and pricing, everything clicked for the team. “Within two months, they got used to using the system,” Tupaz recalls.

The biggest win, though, came on the accounting front. Integrating its B2B eCommerce platform with QuickBooks Online automated what once consumed Tupaz’s time and energy, dramatically accelerating payment cycles. Customers now receive instant confirmation and invoices upon ordering. “It has saved me a lot of time in terms of the invoicing side, which means that I’m able to get payments five days sooner,” says Tupaz. Faster payments, less admin, and no more overdue invoices. That’s what we call an upgrade.

Order management also got smoother. From endless email threads, now the fulfillment team receives structured order emails that seamlessly flow into Hatch’s in-house ERP through B2B Wave’s API. “It made things very clean,” Tupaz notes. Orders come in, shipments go out within days, and customers get immediate updates—zero back-and-forth. The system maintained Hatch’s unmatched speed. As Tupaz discloses, “B2B Wave allows us to continue to be fast, but still with a relatively small team.”

How did customers take the shift? According to Tupaz, the response has been “generally really positive.” Even legacy clients quickly appreciated the self-serve capabilities, and new ones found the onboarding process and online experience super simple. The best part is that from an ordering platform, it transformed into a discovery tool for new releases. “It actually became easier for them because they were able to order and see new items,” Tupaz admits.

With that extra time saved, the team revived regular face-to-face customer visits. Ultimately, automation didn’t replace personal connections—it enhanced them.

Hatch Coffee streamlined operations and stayed true to its commitment to quick turnaround and quality. And there’s no slowing down from here.

Results

At Hatch Coffee, growth, efficiency, and innovation aren’t just aspirations but overlapping realities. And at the center of this Venn diagram? B2B Wave, where flexibility, efficiency, and ease intersect.

Onboarding new customers is now seamless; cumbersome PDF forms are in the past. “We just give them a login link and they’re able to sign up and start working almost immediately,” Tupaz shares.

The biggest return has come in the most valuable currency: time. Invoicing, once a weekly grind, now runs on autopilot, reclaiming four hours of Tupaz’s time every week. Most payments land five days sooner, and bad debt has nearly vanished—“almost 0%,” Tupaz notes—driving a more predictable cash flow. All of this comes at a lower cost: no need for an in-house accountant, bookkeeper, or credit agency to chase overdue invoices.

Beyond efficiency, their B2B eCommerce platform turns data into insight. Hatch Coffee can now track product performance across its ever-growing catalog. Plus, the platform effortlessly scales while staying easy to use. “It’s not just a widget company,” Tupaz points out. “It’s been highly useful in that regard.”

With the backend running smoothly, Hatch Coffee can focus on its mission: innovating and experimenting. As the company approaches its tenth anniversary, big plans are brewing, most prominently a potential dive into craft beer. And the biggest dream of all? A permanent space to call its own. “Hopefully, we’ll have everything under one roof in the next two to three years,” Tupaz shares.

They say a lot can happen over coffee. A single sip in Nigeria sparked a journey that led to a Canada-wide coffee powerhouse. With passion, expertise, and innovation fueling every move at Hatch Coffee, one thing is certain: what’s past is prologue.

Take your Wholesale Business Online with B2B Wave

Cut payment delays by 5 days. Reduce bad debt to almost zero. Scale effortlessly—just like Hatch Coffee did. See how B2B Wave can transform your wholesale business.  Request a demo with our experts today.