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Costa Unveils $47 Million, Probat-Filled UK Roastery

Photo by Fergus Burnett (fergusburnett.com), courtesy of Probat. Photography by Fergus Burnett Accreditation required with all use - 'fergusburnett.com'

Photo by Fergus Burnett (fergusburnett.com), courtesy of Probat.

The growth of the specialty coffee market in recent years has resulted in thousands of new and growing small roasteries, yet it’s also been capitalized upon by some of the world’s biggest players in the roasting game.

UK-based Costa Coffee earlier this month unveiled a new £38 million (approximately $47 million USD) roastery designed to set the company up for national and global retail expansion plans by increasing roasting capacity from 11,000 tons per year to approximately 45,000 tons.

The 85,690-square-foot roastery — named Paradise Street, a nod to the company’s original roastery on Old Paradise Street in Lambeth — is located in Basildon, Essex, strategically located near the Port of Tilbury, where Costa’s coffees are imported.

Costa Coffee photo

Costa Coffee photo

The roasting equipment provider for the project is another giant in its respective field, Germany Probat. The German manufacturer supplied three of its massive Neptune drum roasters, creating a capacity of nine tons per hour, along with green and roasted coffee silos, and plant infrastructure including Probat’s Pilot Plant control system.

Despite the roastery growth, the new facility is part of Costa parent company Whitbread’s strategy to reduce emissions by 15 percent from a 2014/15 baseline by 2020. Costa said the facility’s design stage assessment met BREEAM Outstanding requirements. (Like LEED certification in the United States, BREEAM is the UK’s leading rating system for the environmental performance of buildings.)

Photo by Fergus Burnett (fergusburnett.com), courtesy of Probat.

Photo by Fergus Burnett (fergusburnett.com), courtesy of Probat.

Costa says that on-site renewable energy generation will power the roastery and generate hot water for the building through a 249-kilowatt solar PV rooftop system. The facility also includes a rainwater harvesting system, among a host of other environmental efficiencies.

In an announcement of the roastery opening, Costa Managing Director Dominic Paul said, “Costa is growing rapidly as a global business and our new roastery will provide the platform for sustained international expansion as we continue inspiring the world to love great coffee.”

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