UK coffee roasting firm, Lincoln & York have installed a 600kg coffee bean roaster, reported to be the largest machine of its kind in the UK.
The machine, imported from Brambati, Italy, has taken eight months and six engineers to install.
The huge piece of equipment will increase the firm’s capacity of 3,600kg of coffee an hour by 70%.
The investment is part of a £3m development to expand the business, which has already included opening a contingency coffee roasting plant on the same site as its main factory to facilitate the new roaster.
Roasting and packing kit has also been relocated to the new facility, both of which are based at Elsham Wold Industrial Estate in North Lincolnshire.
MD of Lincoln & York, James Sweeting said: “Our customer base has massively diversified over the last five years and our new roaster and contingency roaster are just two ways we are responinding to this and preparing for future growth.
“We work with a range of different sized businesses across the out of home, foodservice, wholesale, vending and specialist retail markets.
“This new roaster will allow us to fulfill high volume orders for our largest national and international customers, increasing capacity across our other roasting equipment.
“To have hour own contingency operation has always been our ambition and to now be able to offer our customers a degree of reliability that no other UK roaster can is an attribute we are very proud of.”
The organisation was named in the London Stock Exchange’s 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain and ranked 15th in The Grocer’s Fast 50.
