5 Food Dropshipping Suppliers to Feed Ecommerce Growth

Food dropshipping has quietly emerged as an attractive opportunity for brands to expand into a high-demand category. In September 2022, the Federal Reserve reported that people are shifting spending away from discretionary goods and toward essential items such as food.

Dropshipping food allows brands to stock their virtual shelves without having to buy, hold, and manage food products that have expiration dates. But finding trusted brand partners that supply and dropship high quality food items is challenging.

Wholesale dropshipping marketplaces like Syncee connect brands with food suppliers, but brands need to vet suppliers themselves. Prioritizing the onboarding of more suppliers rather than the right suppliers to their platform leads to friction between brand partners and poor fulfillment experiences for customers.

Brand partnership platforms like Canal take a curated approach to choosing food brands to join the platform. Our platform encourages ecommerce partnerships over traditional food dropshipping. Similar to how Great Jones partnered with DEUX, Fly by Jing, and Golde through Canal (see below), you can partner with food brands on Canal to build your digital pantry.

I founded Fly By Jing in 2018, inspired by the amazing flavors of my hometown Chengdu and its famous fly restaurants — soulful hole-in-the-wall eateries so good they attract diners like flies. Jing Gao, Founder & CEO of Fly By Jing (featured supplier on Canal)

Who should dropship food?

Food is an attractive category because it’s a consumable, meaning it can constantly be repurchased—like how customers of the coffee equipment brand Fellow return to purchase coffee that Fellow’s team curates and sells through Canal.

Traditionally, one of the risks of selling coffee and other food items is that consumables have a finite shelf life and eventually expire. Dropshipping food items changes the economics because the risk of being saddled with unsold inventory is transferred to the supplier, or the food brand that is more adept at moving inventory across its network of retail partners. 

With the risk of unsold inventory drastically reduced, any brand that is passionate about food can partner with great food brands and experiment with dropshipping.

Kitchenware brands

One type of business that may consider food dropshipping is a kitchenware brand. The launch of Pantry Pals by cookware startup Great Jones is a great example of a company extending its product assortment with third-party products that complement its core products. 

Creating a food marketplace with premium dropshipping suppliers to complement your kitchenware products can help you increase basket sizes and build brand influence. Recommending and selling what people should prepare with the kitchenware they purchase is a great way to appeal to more customers and capture additional spend.

Food blogs

If you’re a food blog, why not sell the food you write about? That’s one of the ideas at Sporked, which sells food products on its blog and uses Canal’s brand partnership platform for dropshipping trendy, authentic food products to its customers. 

Of course, the key here is maintaining the trust you’ve meticulously built with your audience over time. If a company starts dropshipping low quality products that the online community dislikes, the trust you’ve built can erode very quickly. It’s important for blogs to only promote and sell curated, high-quality products that will satisfy and delight their readers.

Nutritionists

Creators and celebrities who build a brand around healthy lifestyles and fitness can sell complementary food items as well. As you’re about to see, there is a wealth of unique, high quality food products that never existed before and are geared towards modern, health-conscious consumers. 

From “functional” cookie doughs enhanced with vitamins and nutrients, to superfood-fueled lattes and matcha mixes, creators and brands that promote healthy lifestyles can partner with health food dropshipping suppliers and vegan food dropshipping suppliers to offer curated food products that match their brand ethos.

The best food dropshipping suppliers

If you’re a brand looking to expand into a new category and want to find high quality food dropshipping partners, here’s a list of the five best food suppliers in our curated marketplace.

Fly By Jing

Where highly charged flavors meet authentic ingredients, Fly By Jing is the first premium Chinese food company that brings thoughtfully crafted pantry staples to the modern kitchen. Developed by Jing Gao—chef, entrepreneur, and renowned expert on Chinese cuisine—the company is on a mission to bring uncensored Chinese flavors to the table with its sauces, spice mixes, dumplings, and other products. 

Following its launch on Kickstarter as the highest funded craft food project on the platform, Fly By Jing has seen viral organic growth from a passionate fan base and has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, WSJ, Saveur, Esquire and more, which have described the company as revolutionizing Chinese food and heralding a new era of flavor.

Fly By Jing doesn't conform to anyone else's notions of value, taste, tradition. It is one person's recipes, one person's vision, and one person's story. With these products, I'm telling you mine. Jing Gao, Founder and CEO

You can dropship these sauces from Fly By Jing through Canal:

• Sichuan Chili Crisp — The first and only 100% all-natural Sichuan chili sauce, proudly crafted in Chengdu. It's hot, spicy, crispy, numbing and deliciously savory.
• Zhong Sauce — This is a concoction of aromatic "fuzhi" soy sauce, slow-brewed with brown sugar, mushrooms, garlic, and a blend of spices.
• Triple Threat — A best-selling trio of addictive Sichuan Sauces which includes the Sichuan Chili Crisp, Zhong Sauce, and Mala Spice Mix.

Brightland

Founded by Aishwarya Iyer in 2018, Brightland is a direct-to-consumer olive oil company that was born out of a desire for time-honored food production and a deep belief in the land and what it provides. Inspired by Iyer’s salt-farming ancestors in South India, Brightland produces high-quality California olive oil using hand-picked organic heirloom olives. Unlike other products available on the market, their oils are never rotten, overprocessed, or fraudulent, and contain absolutely no fillers or artificial preservatives.

Brightland also produces a line of premium, fruit-forward, double-fermented vinegars. These products use fruits grown in nutrient-dense soil and are double fermented in stainless steel to create zingy, bright, bold, and decadent taste profiles. 

My personal experience inspired the idea for Brightland, which was born out of a desire for time-honored food production—and a deep belief in the land and what it provides. Aishwarya Iyer, Founder and CEO

You can dropship these premium olive oils and vinegars from Brightland through Canal:

• The Essential Capsule — Includes Brightland’s signature extra virgin olive oil Duo and fruit-infused vinegar Pair made on small family farms in California.
• The Luminous Capsule — Crafted to inspire endless feasts and fêtes with friends and family, this is perfect for kitchen connoisseurs and novices alike.
• The Mini Essentials — This makes the perfect little thinking-of-you or thank you gift and includes mini bottles of AWAKE, ALIVE, RAPTURE, and PARASOL.

DEUX

Founded by Sabeena Ladha in 2020, DEUX is a direct-to-consumer company that produces edible, vegan, and gluten-free cookie doughs that are enhanced with functional ingredients. These include zinc and elderberry (for immune support), aloe vera and vitamin c (for collagen support), pea protein, ashwagandha (for stress relief), and maca (to help boost mood). The company also produces a line of “drips” which are dessert spreads that can be enjoyed on fruit, cookies, in a sandwich, or straight into your mouth.

DEUX uses the highest quality ingredients, without preservatives and fillers, and their products are suitable for a variety of diet regimens. Their cookie doughs and drips can be eaten straight from the jar.

We partner with a naturopathic doctor to determine the most impactful ingredients for each of our products. With her help, we enhance each serving of melty, gooey, delicious cookie dough with supplements, so you can feel good about what you’re eating.

You can dropship these functional cookie doughs from DEUX through Canal:​

• Birthday Cake — Finally a mood boost that tastes as good as it feels. Birthday Cake is enhanced with Ashwagandha (1230 mg per jar) for a natural dose of stress relief. 
• Cinnamon Roll — Sweet cinnamon swirl and white chocolate chips that turn to icing when baked. Enhanced with Vitamin B12 (1400 mcg per jar) for energy & metabolism.
• Drop Pack — Includes 1 jar of Mint Chocolate Chunk, 1 jar of Pumpkin Spice, 1 jar of Cinnamon Roll and 1 jar of S'mores. 

Golde

Life partners Trinity Mouzon Wofford and Issey Kobori are the creative minds behind Golde, a wellness brand that was started in 2017 from a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, NY. Their products are a celebration of superfoods that are meant to effortlessly boost your daily routine, and they include everything from wellness-specific products (such as make your own matcha kits, and cocoa infused with mushrooms) to beauty-minded ones (such as skincare face masks).

Golde’s formulas are always 100% natural and vegan-friendly, and made with superfood ingredients you can recognize and trust. The company works closely with manufacturers across the country and sources their superfoods from vendors all around the world.

Before we started, there were no wellness brands talking about inclusivity or accessibility. And now we see that as a pillar across the industry, and I think we can continue to push the category forward. Trinity Mouzon Wofford, Co-founder and CEO

You can dropship these superfood latte kits and blends from Golde through Canal:

• Superfood Latte Kit — Grab all three superfood latte flavors to boost any moment of your routine.
• Matcha Turmeric Latte Blend — Golde’s original superfood latte blend paired with 100% pure, shade-grown matcha for a gentle boost of jitter-free energy.
• Cacao Turmeric Latte Blend — Sip your superfoods with this spicy cacao instant latte! Golde’s go-to favorite coffee swap or booster.

Opopop

Founded by entrepreneurs Brad Roulier and Jonas Tempel, Opopop is a small, Denver, Colorado-based company that’s on a mission to liberate you from boring popcorn. The company has completely reinvented the popular snack by using a proprietary flavor delivery process. 

Its products include Flavor Wrapped™ Popcorn Kernels, which are individual kernels coated with flavoring that allows popcorn to be flavored as it pops, as well as Peel + Pour Pop Cups, which are single-serve packages that contain popcorn kernels with a solid chunk of flavoring inside. All of Opopop’s products are non-GMO and gluten-free, and the company grows and harvests every kernel of their popcorn to maintain control over the manufacturing and production process.

​​Our commitment starts with the seeds we plant, the soil it grows in, and the climate where it thrives. We grow every kernel of our popcorn to ensure that all Opopop kernels are sourced with love.

You can dropship these flavor-wrapped popcorns from Opopop through Canal:

• Maui Heat — Hot like lava. Sweet like pineapple. Sweet, savory, and totally spicy.
• Cinnalicious — Because popcorn in the AM is totally a thing. No one can tell you not to eat popcorn for breakfast.
• Chedapeño — Cheezy and spicy and everything nicey.

Dropship authentic food with Canal

Brands that are passionate about recommending and selling authentic food must partner with other value-driven brands that supply original, high quality food items. You can find these brands and products on Canal, a brand partnership platform for supplier discovery and dropshipping automation.

Partnering with authentic food suppliers on Canal is easy:

1. Contact us about joining our curated network by completing the form below
2. Send ecommerce partnership proposals to premium food suppliers
3. Add food products to your storefront with a simple ecommerce integration
4. Automatically pass through orders to suppliers and collect commissions
5. Discover new food dropshipping suppliers and repeat step two!