A Pure Roast team member operating a coffee packing machine at the roastery in Lisburn

How to start your own coffee brand in the UK and Ireland (without a roastery)

You don't need a roastery to launch a coffee brand. Most coffee sold under a shop's, café's or hotel's own name is roasted and packed by a specialist roaster, under the brand owner's label. This is called private label, white label or own label coffee. It's how retailers, coffee chains, hotels and new brands get great coffee on the shelf without buying roasting equipment.

This guide covers the main decisions, from choosing your coffee to packaging, labelling and where you can sell it. It's written from our side of the process. At Pure Roast we roast and pack private label coffee for brands across Ireland, the UK and further afield.

White label or bespoke: two ways to start

There are two main routes, and the right one depends on how quickly you want to launch and how unique you want your coffee to be.

White label means putting your brand on a coffee the roaster already makes. It's the quickest route to market, because the coffee is already developed, tested and in production. At Pure Roast, that includes blends like Valentia, a 3-star Great Taste winner in 2024. You can taste our own range to get a feel for the styles on offer.

Bespoke means developing a blend and roast profile around your customers. It takes longer, because there are rounds of sampling, but the result is a coffee that's yours alone.

Not sure which suits you? Start by thinking about who will drink it, how they'll brew it and what price you want to sell at. A good roaster will help you work through the rest.

Choosing your coffee (or matching one you already sell)

Choose for your customers, not just your own taste. A smooth, chocolatey medium roast suits most espresso and milk drinks. A lighter roast shows off fruit and sweetness in filter coffee. If your customers mostly drink lattes, test your samples with milk.

If you already sell or serve a coffee you like, you don't have to start from scratch. Our blend matching service is built for this:

  • Send us a bag of the coffee you use now, or its spec if you have one.
  • Our quality and coffee experts profile it and sample-roast a match.
  • You get a free sample, usually within a matter of days, with a price comparison so you can taste them side by side and decide.

Once you sign off a coffee, we save the roast profile so every batch tastes the same. That consistency matters more as you grow. Your customers expect the bag they buy next month to taste like the one they loved this month.

We roast on twin Loring S70 convection roasters. Instead of tumbling beans in a hot drum, a Loring roasts them evenly in moving hot air, which helps us repeat a roast profile batch after batch. Loring also says the S70 gives up to 80% fuel savings and reduction of greenhouse gases in every roast, compared to conventional roasters. That's a useful part of the story if your customers care about sustainability.

Formats: whole bean, ground, pods and coffee bags

Think about where your coffee will be drunk. Different customers need different formats:

  • Whole bean, roasted to your profile, for cafés and home grinders.
  • Roast and ground for filter, cafetière and espresso.
  • ESE espresso pods, for machines that take Easy Serving Espresso pods. We're Ireland's only ESE pod producer.
  • Senseo®-compatible soft pods.
  • String-and-tag coffee bags that brew like a tea bag. They're popular for hotel rooms, offices and travel.

Formats come in retail, wholesale or foodservice packs. Many brands start with one or two formats and add more once they know what sells. You don't need a big range on day one.

Packaging: recyclable and compostable options

Packaging is where your brand comes to life, and where retailers and customers will look for sustainability credentials. We offer fully recyclable and fully compostable packaging options.

When you plan your packaging, think about:

  • Pack size. 250g is a common retail size. Larger packs suit cafés and foodservice.
  • Freshness. Ask about valves and seals that protect roasted coffee.
  • Artwork. Leave room for the mandatory label information (see below) as well as your design.
  • Certification marks. If you choose certified coffee, the logos have their own usage rules.

Labelling and food registration basics

Coffee is food, so your brand has legal responsibilities, even if someone else roasts and packs it. Rules depend on where you're based and where you sell. Go to the official guidance rather than relying on a roaster's summary:

Your roaster can tell you exactly what's in the bag and how it was produced. Check your final label against the official guidance, or with an adviser, before you print.

Food safety and EUDR: what retailers will ask for

If you plan to sell through retailers, expect questions about how and where your coffee is made. Larger buyers usually want to see a recognised food safety certification from your supplier.

Our roastery in Lisburn holds a BRC AA grade. BRC AA is the food safety grade that big buyers look for, and every bag we roast and pack, yours included, is made to it.

Buyers may also ask about:

  • Certified coffee: we offer Organic, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance coffee.
  • EUDR: all our coffee is EUDR compliant.

Having these answers ready from day one makes conversations with stockists much easier.

Selling in the UK, Ireland and the EU

Where your roaster is based can affect where you can sell easily. Because we roast in Northern Ireland, our coffee has access to both the UK market and the EU single market for goods. Under the Windsor Framework, goods made here move to Great Britain with no new paperwork, checks or tariffs. Goods moving to Ireland and the rest of the EU need no customs declarations, tariffs or customs checks.

So whether your brand sells in Britain, Ireland or Europe, one roaster can supply all three. We already deliver to Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Azerbaijan, China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Minimums, prices and lead times

These are the first questions most new brands ask. The honest answer is that they depend on the coffee, format, packaging and volume. A white label coffee in a standard pack is very different from a bespoke blend in fully printed packaging.

Minimum orders can be discussed, so it's worth talking to us even if you're starting small. Send us your brief and we'll come back with a quote.

Why brands choose Pure Roast

We're the largest coffee roaster in Northern Ireland: a family business in Lisburn, roasting since 2006 and now in its third generation. We have 3,500 tonnes a year of roasting capacity. That means we can take your first run and keep pace as you grow. Find out more about us.

Most of the coffee we roast carries someone else's name. Retailers, airlines, coffee chains and hotels rely on us to get it right, batch after batch.

Ready to start your coffee brand?

Tell us about your business and plans. We'll recommend a route, white label, bespoke or a blend match, and send you samples to taste.

Get a private label quote, or see everything we offer on our private label coffee page.

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