Frequently asked questions
Straight answers about how buyer and supplier engagements work, how Easterlies gets paid, and what it doesn't do.
Quick answer
What does Easterlies do, and what does it not do?
Easterlies runs a two-sided desk connecting North American buyers with Chinese tea and food & beverage suppliers. Straight answers about how buyer and supplier engagements work, how Easterlies gets paid, and what it doesn't do: it coordinates; it does not certify, grade, or act as the importer, lab, or counsel.
- Buyers: spec-matched shortlist, buyer-commissioned verification, then transaction coordination.
- Suppliers: close a named buyer’s compliance gap and run the export.
- No published dollar figure, and no guarantee of a purchase order or regulatory sign-off.
Easterlies runs a two-sided desk connecting North American buyers with Chinese tea and food & beverage suppliers. For buyers, it finds a spec-matched shortlist, coordinates verification against the buyer's own standard, and runs the transaction: factory liaison, logistics, customs, payment documents. For suppliers who already have a named buyer requirement, it closes the compliance gap and runs the export. One bilingual team on both sides of the Pacific.
Two kinds of client. North American buyers bringing tea or food and beverage products in from China, who want a spec-matched supplier shortlist and a verified record before they commit. And Chinese tea and F&B factories that already have a North American buyer's named requirement and need the compliance gap closed and the export run. Each side has its own page and its own process.
Three moves. Find: you name the product and the standard you sell to, and we come back with a spec-matched shortlist. Verify: you choose the lab or auditor and pay it directly, and every finding is marked self-reported, document-verified, or third-party-audited, including what we didn't check. Run: Mandarin factory liaison, inspection coordinated to your protocol, logistics, customs, and payment documents through to your dock.
Three phases, usually triggered by a North American buyer's named requirement. Scope: we map the compliance gap against your buyer's standard, FDA facility registration, FSVP-importer role, labeling and ingredient claims. Close: we close those gaps, coordinate the verification your buyer asked for, and assemble the evidence in your buyer's language. Run: Mandarin on-the-ground liaison, export, logistics, customs, and trade-show participation.
No. Easterlies doesn't certify, verify, qualify, or grade a supplier itself. The buyer sets the standard, chooses and pays the lab or auditor directly, and makes the final call. Easterlies coordinates around that process: factory liaison, document chasing, inspection scheduled to the buyer's protocol, but issues no grade or certificate of its own.
There's no published rate card, and pricing is scoped per engagement. On the buyer side, cost splits into separate lanes so no single fee can bias a finding: Easterlies' own transaction-coordination fee, paid the way a sourcing agent is paid (a percentage of the shipment's FOB value), the buyer's verification cost paid straight to their lab, and supplier-paid remediation, triggered only after a specific finding calls for it. On the supplier side, pricing is project-based, sized to SKU count, facility count, and how much gap-closing is needed.
The buyer chooses and pays the lab or auditor directly, so findings answer to the buyer, not to Easterlies. Both sides see both numbers in writing before the first purchase order goes out. If a shipment is disputed, the same factual record goes to both parties unedited, and Easterlies drops any fee held from the supplier on that shipment. The supplier has never paid us a cent for the verification.
Easterlies is not the importer of record, not a certification body, not a testing lab, not counsel, not an FSVP importer, not a customs broker, and not a label approver. It doesn't itself certify, verify, qualify, or grade a supplier; that call rests with the buyer's own qualified reviewer. No engagement includes a guarantee of buyer approval, a purchase order, or regulatory sign-off, and liability is capped at fees paid.
Before any paid engagement starts, Easterlies gives you a free read on realistic landed cost, lead time, and the compliance gotchas most buyers miss on a product coming from China. It's a starting conversation, not a sales pitch. You walk away with a clearer number even if you never engage us further.
No. The case studies on this site are illustrative composites: patterns Easterlies sees repeatedly, not a transcript of one specific engagement, and any figures or timelines inside them are illustrative, not reported. The real, named client relationships are the four testimonials published on the site: Truly Beverage, Great Lakes Tea, 广州三叶商行, and 美味栈国际有限公司.
Chinese tea and food and beverage products, sold into North America. On the buyer side, that's mostly matcha, loose-leaf and specialty tea, and F&B ingredients; on the supplier side, factories already selling, or aiming to sell, into the U.S. and Canada. The team itself is bilingual and cross-Pacific, based across Vancouver, Guangzhou, and San Francisco.