Roasting Plant Coffee Lands $10 Million, Plans US and UK Expansion

A Roasting Plant UK location. Press release photo.

Roasting Plant Coffee, the coffee chain known for its flamboyant green-coffee-to-cup super-automatic system, today announced the completion of a $10 million funding round.

The company said the fresh capital will support continued retail growth in the United States and UK, as well as the “value engineering” of the company’s proprietary in-store Javabot system.

The visually striking Javabot involves green coffees in clear tubes that are pneumatically delivered on demand to fluid-bed roasters for on-site roasting, either individually or as custom blends. The roasted coffess are immediately delivered to super-automatic machines for drinks or fill machines for packaged coffee. Swiss company Eversys is a known supplier of Roasting Plant drink-making equipment.

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Founded by engineer and former Starbucks executive in charge of profit generation Mike Caswell, Roasting Plant debuted the Javabot system at its first location in 2007 before expanding to additional U.S. stores in New York and Detroit.

Following multiple legal challenges involving the company’s previous store licensing model, the company enlisted a new UK CEO, Jamie Robertson, who expanded the Roasting Plant footprint to the UK. Robertson became the Roasting Plant Group CEO in 2022.

The company now has 15 locations, including three airport shops, two shops inside Fresh Market grocery stores, and coffee shops in New York, Detroit, Washington D.C. and London. In an announcement today, the company noted Chicago as another target for expansion.

In a 2023 interview with World Coffee Portal, Robertson said the company planned to open 345 stores over five years in the U.S. and UK.

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