FDBusiness.com

Costa, the UK’s favourite coffee shop, has announced that it will be building a brand new roastery to support its national and international growth ambitions. The new roastery will be built in Basildon and will operate in conjunction with Costa’s existing roastery in Lambeth, reinforcing Costa’s British heritage and its ongoing commitment to locating its roasting operations in the UK.

Quality coffee is driving customer demand, meaning that Costa’s Lambeth roastery (established by the Costa brothers in 1984) is roasting coffee 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Costa has roasted its premium Mocha Italia blend in Lambeth for more than 30 years and the new roastery in Basildon will help to meet expected demand in 2020 and beyond.

Costa will be investing an estimated £36 million in its new site in Basildon, building a state-of-the-art facility to ensure the highest standards of quality are maintained across its two roasteries.

Costa’s current roastery capacity is 11,000 tonnes but the new roastery alone will have the ability to produce 45,000 tonnes – helping to supply the 464 million cups of coffee Costa customers consumed last year.

The UK is the hub of Costa’s national and international business. Unprocessed coffee beans from Rainforest Alliance1 certified growers are shipped from Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Guatemala and Vietnam to Tilbury Docks in Essex, before being transported to Costa’s Lambeth roastery. Costa’s new roastery in Basildon, 14 miles from Tilbury Docks, will be strategically important – enhancing operational efficiency as well as roasting capacity. The new roastery is scheduled to open in early 2017.

With over 1,968 coffee shops in the UK and more than 1,157 shops in 29 overseas markets, Costa has diversified into both the at-home and gourmet self-serve markets. There are now more than 4,086 Costa Express self-serve machines. In the UK, Costa employs over 15,000 people and creates around 1,500 jobs each year.

For its full-year results, Costa announced a 17.9% lift in sales and a new growth target – boosting Costa system sales from £1.4 billion in 2014/15 to £2.5 billion in 2020.