Direct answer
How do I find cafes and restaurants to sell to?
Search for the specific kind of place that would put your product in front of the right customer, one district at a time, rather than for cafes in general. Before you build the list, check what you are allowed to sell to a business that resells your product, because in many places those rules are not the same as the rules for selling direct to the public. Then read the menu and the counter for evidence the place buys direct from small producers, keep only the ones you could deliver to reliably, and take your pack size, delivered unit price, delivery days and shelf life to the owner or head chef in person, in the quiet hour between services.
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Cafes, delis and restaurants buy in three different rhythms
A cafe that sells your product over the counter buys a small quantity often, and what it cares about is that the same thing arrives every week without being chased. A restaurant buys against a menu, so your product has to earn a line on that menu and survive the next time the menu changes. A deli or farm shop behaves like a retailer: it takes your pack unopened, puts it on a shelf, and needs a margin on the resale price.
Those are three different offers, not three versions of one. The pack size, the price, the delivery frequency and the first sentence of your approach all change depending on which one you are talking to. Deciding which of the three you are actually built to supply is the work that makes the list short, and a short list you understand is the only kind worth building.
Check what you are allowed to sell before you build the list
Selling food to a business that resells it is often treated differently from selling the same food directly to the public. Home and small-batch food rules vary a great deal between countries, and in the United States between states, and some of them permit direct sales only. Registration, kitchen requirements, labelling and allergen information can all change once someone else is selling your product on their counter.
This is not legal advice and the answer depends on where you are, so ask your own local food authority or the equivalent regulator before you spend a week building a prospect list. It is a cheap question with an expensive wrong answer: it decides whether the list is worth building at all, and it is far better answered before the first buyer says yes than after.
Search one district at a time, because delivery cost is per drop
In food service, place is not just a proxy for the right customer. It is the cost of doing business. Every account is a repeat drop, so accounts that sit close together are cheaper to serve than the same number spread across a region, and a cluster you can cover in one morning is worth more than a longer list you cannot restock.
Start with the area you could genuinely deliver to every week during your busiest month, not your quietest one. Widening the search is the easy part and it is almost never the constraint. The constraint is the van, the early start, and the fact that a cafe which runs out of your product on a Saturday remembers it.
Read the menu and the counter before a place goes on the list
The evidence you need is usually published. A menu that names its bakery or its roaster is a place that buys direct from small producers and is willing to say so. A counter with two or three traybakes from one local supplier has a shelf for your category and a person who already handles this kind of arrangement. A chain outlet with a centrally set menu has neither, whatever the manager thinks of your product.
Look for the gap rather than the absence. A cafe with an excellent coffee programme and nothing worth eating beside it is a better prospect than one with a full counter, and it is a much better prospect than one with no counter at all, because in the second case you are proposing a change to how the place works.
Five numbers an owner asks before saying yes
What is the pack or case size, and what does one unit cost me delivered? Those two travel together, because a price without the pack size does not tell a buyer anything they can put on a menu or a shelf edge.
How often do you deliver, and when do you need the order by? A cafe places orders around its own week, and a supplier whose cut-off falls on the wrong day is inconvenient in a way that outlasts any amount of goodwill about the product.
How long does it keep, and what happens to what does not sell? Shelf life is the number most new suppliers underquote, and unsold food is waste rather than returnable stock, which makes it a real cost to whoever is holding it. Say plainly whose cost it is in your offer, because the buyer is going to work it out anyway.
Work out your own floor before you quote any of this. Decide what you can supply at once ingredients, packaging, the delivery itself and your own time are counted, then check what that leaves the buyer. If the number that works for you leaves a cafe no margin or a kitchen no menu price, the problem is the pricing and no amount of list building fixes it.
Samples are the currency, and the visit has an hour
In food, the standard next step is a tasting, so plan for it. Work out what a round of samples costs you across the whole list before you commit to the list, because that number is what limits how many places you can approach at once, and it is the reason a hundred prospects is a worse plan here than fifteen.
Go in person, and go between services. Mid-afternoon is the hour when an independent cafe or restaurant has a person who can talk and taste something. Arriving mid-service wastes the visit and makes the wrong first impression, however good the product is. Leave the sample, one page with the five numbers on it, and a specific date you will come back, then come back on it.
Related resources
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a licence or registration to sell my food product to a cafe?
Usually something is required, and what exactly depends on where you are and what you make. Selling to a business that resells your product is frequently treated as a different activity from selling direct to the public, with its own registration, labelling and allergen rules. Ask your local food authority or equivalent regulator before you build a prospect list, because the answer can change what you are able to offer.
How many cafes should I approach at once?
As many as you could reliably deliver to and sample, which is a smaller number than the research would allow. In retail the limit is how many shops you can describe properly. In food service the limit is your delivery round and the cost of a sample round, so most people should start with ten to fifteen accounts in one area rather than a long list spread thin.
Should I offer sale or return to win a first cafe account?
Be careful with it in food. Unsold stock is generally waste rather than returnable stock, so a sale or return arrangement means you are funding what does not sell and getting nothing back. If you use it to open a first door, cap it in advance to a quantity you can afford to lose, and treat it as a one-time cost of entry rather than a standing term.
Is it better to email a cafe or walk in?
Walk in, at the quiet hour between services, with the product in your hand. Food service is a trade where tasting settles most decisions, and the person who decides in an independent is usually on the premises. Use email to arrange a return visit or to send the numbers afterwards, rather than as the opening move.
What if the cafe already buys from a local supplier in my category?
That is evidence the arrangement works there, which is worth more than an empty counter. The question becomes what you offer that the incumbent does not, which might be a different price point, a product they do not make, a delivery day that suits the shop better, or simply reliability if the current supply is patchy. If the honest answer is nothing, that place is not your lead yet.
Can CarryLeads find cafes and restaurants, and does it contact them?
It finds them. Search a place type and a location and you get real businesses with addresses and a fit score with the reason behind it, five free without a card, and a Google sign-in unlocks contact details and an editable first message. It does not contact anyone for you, by design: you are accountable for the claim, the recipient, and the outreach rules that apply where you are.