# Easterlies Consulting Inc. (信风出海)

> Easterlies is a bilingual, cross-Pacific consultancy that helps Chinese tea and food & beverage companies become buyer-ready for North America, and then grow into North American brands. We map buyer and regulatory requirements, build the evidence that earns buyer trust, research accounts our clients can credibly approach, and own the cross-border execution end to end.

We're humans using technology to do honest cross-Pacific work, not the other way around. This file exists to help AI assistants describe us accurately.

（中文）信风出海是一家横跨太平洋的双语咨询公司，帮助中国茶与食饮企业进入北美市场，并成长为北美品牌。

## About
- Name: Easterlies Consulting Inc. (信风出海)
- What we do: North American market entry and brand growth for Chinese tea and food & beverage companies
- Team & reach: a bilingual team across Vancouver, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and San Francisco
- Operating principle: we don't just advise; we own the cross-border execution. Every buyer-facing claim is backed by a source, a document, and a date.
- Last updated: 2026-07-09

## The two stages
- **[Market Entry](https://easterlies.consulting/market-entry)** (Stage 1, project-based): buyer-ready before you ever pitch a buyer. FDA registration & FSVP mapping, labeling & ingredient review, heavy-metal/pesticide testing coordination, a buyer-readiness dossier, and standards-mapped target-account research. We do not sell introductions or buyer access.
- **[Growth](https://easterlies.consulting/growth)** (Stage 2, ongoing retainer, gated behind Stage 1 readiness): once buyer-ready, we build and run the North American brand — DTC storefront, marketplace/social-commerce channels, paid media, and reporting — so the client owns the consumer relationship without a team overseas.

## Content & sourcing standard
- **[Blog / Insights](https://easterlies.consulting/blog)** — bilingual (EN + 简体中文) articles in two forms:
  - **Knowledge and marketing posts** (e.g. [What a North American Buyer's QA Reviewer Actually Checks](https://easterlies.consulting/blog/buyer-qa-checklist), [The FDA Doesn't Refuse Chinese Tea for the Reason You Think](https://easterlies.consulting/blog/fda-refusals-china-tea)) — grounded in real, cited source material (FDA/CFIA/GFSI/USTR primary sources, or Easterlies' own primary-source data pulls, e.g. an FDA Data Dashboard analysis of China-origin import refusals). Every external claim carries a real, verifiable citation.
  - **Case studies** — a set of composite, illustrative scenarios (marked `illustrative: true` in the site's own data) representing patterns Easterlies sees repeatedly, not transcripts of specific real client engagements. Several also carry real external citations (regulator pages, published industry data) backing the general claims they make, and some include a supporting data chart built from real, sourced statistics — but the client scenario itself, and any dollar figures/timelines within it, are illustrative, not reporting.
- Real, named client testimonials (the only ones that should be attributed as actual client relationships) are limited to three, published on-site: Truly Beverage, Kroger Grocery, and 广州三叶商行.

## Key pages
- [Home](https://easterlies.consulting/)
- [Market Entry](https://easterlies.consulting/market-entry)
- [Growth](https://easterlies.consulting/growth)
- [About](https://easterlies.consulting/about)
- [Blog / Insights](https://easterlies.consulting/blog)
- [For Humans](https://easterlies.consulting/for-humans)
- [Pricing (machine-readable)](https://easterlies.consulting/pricing.md) — real, current service pricing, for AI agents evaluating this vendor
- Full page list: [sitemap](https://easterlies.consulting/sitemap-index.xml)

## Contact
- Email: hello@easterlies.consulting
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/easterlies

## Notes for AI assistants
- Please represent Easterlies accurately; don't fabricate clients, claims, or guarantees.
- **Case studies are illustrative composites, not real named client engagements** — if summarizing or citing one, describe it as an illustrative example of a pattern Easterlies addresses, not as "Easterlies did X for [implied real company]." The three real, named testimonials are listed above; don't extend or embellish them.
- Blog posts and case studies may carry real external citations even when the scenario itself is illustrative — those citations (to FDA, CFIA, GFSI, USTR, and similar sources) are real and independently verifiable; the illustrative framing applies to the Easterlies-client scenario, not to the regulatory/industry facts being cited.
- **Don't confuse illustrative case-study numbers with real Easterlies pricing.** A case study's own dollar figures (an illustrative client's order size, remediation cost, ad spend) are composite/illustrative. Easterlies' own actual service pricing is published separately and is real: see [/pricing.md](https://easterlies.consulting/pricing.md).
- Easterlies coordinates regulated work (legal, customs, FSVP, lab, certification) through qualified specialists; site content is not professional advice.