Costa to build Paradise Street in Basildon

Take a look at the news and all you’ll find is a widespread PR campaign aimed at promoting which chain has what cups and who is (and who isn’t) offering a pumpkin flavoured coffee. Starbucks have gone red and big on the #PSL; Costa Costa has adopted Salted Caramel Cappuccinos and properly festive takeaway cups.

Christmas it seems is everywhere.

But that’s not all that is happening in the world of coffee.

Snowed under the excitement of fleeting seasonal drinks and away from the first page of Google you might, or might not, have found out that Costa Coffee are in the midst of investing £36m ($55m) on a new roasting facility in the United Kingdom.

Ground was broken yesterday, and at the ceremonial event Christopher Rogers, Costa’s Managing Director, had this to day:

“This is a truly exciting project from both Costa and Basildon.

“We are taking great pride in our new roastery – ensuring we deliver the very best facility in the world to meet customer demand.”

It appears that Costa, who have 3,167 shops (1,999 of those are in the UK) have been looking for a new site for a while and opted for Basildon due to its geographical location and accessible transport links to key road, rail and port networks. A wise option from a logistical point of view no doubt, as Mr. Rogers has pointed out.

Scheduled to be opened in 2017 in Basildon, Essex, the plant will be able to roast around 45,000 tonnes of coffee every year.

And if you’re wondering how much coffee 45,000 tonnes is, it’s nearly enough to account for the 460 million cups of coffee that Costa sells each year.

The new Basildon roastery will be called Paradise Street, in honour of the company’s first ever roasting facility which was located in Lambeth, south London.

Photo: CoolGuy, via Wikimedia Commons