Inside the Roastery: We’ve had an upgrade!
July 18th, 2024 | Business News
After sixty rich years of roasting coffee at our beloved Glasgow site, we knew it was time for a fresh upgrade and we’re thrilled to share our exciting roastery transformation with you! This multi-million pound investment isn’t just about enhancing our operations—it’s about brewing a brighter, more sustainable future.
A Big Investment for a Bright Future
Our investment includes the introduction of a state-of-the-art green bean handling and blending system, upgraded automation, new conveying systems, and a cutting-edge packaging line, including a pallet packing robot. This comprehensive upgrade is set to revolutionise how we produce your favourite coffees, ensuring consistency and quality in every cup.
But the enhancements don’t stop there. This investment is also the cornerstone of our new sustainability strategy, which aims to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2035. We’re committed to making our entire business operations, including our supply chain, Net Zero by 2040.
Efficiency Meets Sustainability
One of the standout features of our upgrade is the new green storage area. We’ve replaced traditional hessian sacks with larger 1-tonne transportation bags, massively reducing manual handling and increasing the capacity in our roastery. Shipping coffee in bulk containers and improving deliveries to our Glasgow site will also boost capacity. These improvements will cut costs and carbon emissions, making our coffee journey more efficient and eco-friendly.
Overcoming Challenges with Smart Solutions
One of the drivers for investing in two modern packing lines for our roasted coffee was to reconfigure our current roastery layout to improve product flow, plant efficiency and working environment. The confined space required a complete rethink of material flow to create adequate space and production capacity. We have now successfully achieved a direct route from incoming raw coffee to finished product dispatch.
Seamless Integration for Continuous Improvement
One of our core operating principles is maintaining complete flexibility by creating an independent, high-end chain-and-disc product transport network between the roasters and the packing lines, offering near-zero bean damage and allowing both packing lines to be fed by any roaster. In our space-constrained environment, this meant removing all equipment feeding the former packing lines to make room for the new weighing structures. This was all achieved whist maintaining full production and order-fulfillment throughout.
Take a Look Inside the Roastery
Watch our short video, which takes you behind the doors of our Glasgow roastery.
A Brighter, Sustainable Future
The upgraded facility at Matthew Algie positions us for future growth, with integrated automation spanning from green beans and blending to roasting and packaging. We now have even more control over batch weights, blends, and yields for both organic and inorganic coffee, meeting the highest food standards.
None of this would have been possible without the invaluable support from Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s national economic development agency. Their assistance has enabled us to embark on this transformative journey, ensuring that we continue to bring you exceptional coffee while paving the way for a more sustainable future.
As we sip on our favourite brews, we invite you to join us in celebrating this exciting new chapter. Here’s to the future, filled with innovation, sustainability, and, of course, delicious coffee!
We’d love to show you around. If you’d like to come and see the roastery for yourself, get in touch with your account manager, or contact us here.
