It is early in the morning when we speak to Ian Bryson, Managing Director of Lincoln & York. When he asks how our reporter is, he replies, “Not too bad. I’ve had my coffee.” “Me too,” Bryson replies with a grin. “I’ve got 9,000 tons of it.” He is not wrong. For 30 years Lincoln & York has been consistently growing. As a family-owned, independent coffee roasting and packing business they cover all sections of the market, from out-of-home food service to retail. Lincoln & York supply 15 export markets of varying sizes, and when we speak with Bryson, the business now supplies around 9,000 tons of coffee every year, and with a roastery that is capable of producing double that they are set to double the business by 2026.
Yet, despite the quality and popularity of its products, you might not have heard of Lincoln & York.
“You’ll see our products on every shelf in the country, but we work with a high level of discretion,” Bryson shares.
At the same time, no matter how big Lincoln & York grows as a company, there are some things that will never change.
“Because we are a family-owned business, the values which are important to our family are lived all the way through the company,” Bryson says. “We pride ourselves on the quality we put out into the marketplace. We don’t sell our own brands, so we are 100% focused on our customers. Our business growth is driven by the flexibility of our factory, our market knowledge and understanding of our customers’ markets, and we have a huge reservoir of experts to draw from.”
Yet the team remains close-knit, despite Lincoln & York’s decades of growth and impressive capacity, the company has only 85 employees, each of them driven to deliver the best quality of coffee on the market.
The company has been making strong investments into its manufacturing capability, installing 15 packing lines and 6 state-of-the-art Brambati coffee roasters. Combined, these investments give Lincoln & York the flexibility to deliver to all markets in the coffee sector, in the volumes that suit their needs.
“We pride ourselves on being a trusted partner and custodian of our customers’ quality,” Bryson says. “Each customer has their own unique blend or range of blends to reflect their brand, and we make sure they each feel special. This year we are investing in a new fully automated, high-speed packing line for our out-of-home business. It is a million-pound investment that will help to deliver the growth we have planned over the next three years. It will see us double our business by 2026, and the building blocks for that are already in place.”
Informed by Data, Driven by Taste
Lincoln & York has made big investments in the equipment it uses to provide its customers’ coffee, and it has a wealth of knowledge to draw from. But what really sets Lincoln & York’s products apart, and makes its work more science than art, is its use of data.
“Our use of data and our understanding of the sectors we operate in differentiates us,” Bryson says. “We buy a comprehensive range of data for both the out of home and retail markets to provide market-leading insights, which lets us create solutions above and beyond what a lot of our competitors are looking at. It means our customers can capitalise on the growing areas of the coffee market.”
It means that when Lincoln & York’s shareholders are making investment decisions, those decisions are based on reliable forecasts of future volumes.
“Through this data, we can help customers understand the latest trends, what’s happening now in coffee and what’s going to happen to coffee in the future,” Bryson says.
It is an approach that has helped Lincoln & York get ahead of the curve with trends such as ready-to-drink and single-serve coffee capsules.
But while that data is an essential differentiator, it does not tell the whole story. There are an elite group of coffee tasters called “Q graders”, professionals skilled in the sensory evaluation of green coffee. There are not many of them – only 135 can be found in the whole of the UK. Three of those work for Lincoln & York.
“We also have an insight and marketing team that helps us to add value and help our customers drive their coffee sales,” Bryson says.
A Green Cup of Coffee
Of course, one insight that is clear from the data is that climate change presents a severe challenge to the coffee industry.
“Global demand for coffee is forecast to double by 2050, but the land suitable for growing it could decline by half within the same time period,” Bryson points out. “So we want to play our part in protecting the coffee industry now and in the future.”
Bryson also points out that as a coffee roaster and packer Lincoln & York uses gas to roast and pack coffee, so it has a responsibility to mitigate its environmental impact.
This is why the company is focussed on reducing its environmental impact and doing what it can to protect the industry for future generations. From delivering on its commitment to be a carbon neutral roastery one year ahead of its original target in July 2023, to being an active member of World Coffee Research, an organisation working to protect the coffee industry from the effects of climate change by researching and developing more robust, climate change resistant varieties of coffee plant that can grow at higher temperatures.
“We are already a zero waste to landfill site and 100% of our electricity comes from renewable sources. We are working with the Greek supplier Hatzopoulos to transition all our packaging to PP grade, and 100% of our packaging being recyclable by the end of 2024,” Bryson says. “Now we have achieved carbon neutral status for the roastery we are working with One Carbon World to analyse our data and review how and where we can reduce our footprint further, with more work to do elsewhere in the supply chain. That challenge is core to our organisation.”
People on the Ground
Bryson is the first to emphasise that it is Lincoln & York’s people who are key to the company’s success and the quality of its products, and the last couple of years have been a period of heavy investment in recruitment and staff development.
“In recent years, we’ve focused on apprenticeships across human resources, engineering and for our coffee team,” Bryson says. “Our coffee apprentice has won two awards, a Future Talent Award at the Food Manufacture Excellence Awards and Apprentice of the Year at Grimsby College.”
The company does not just recruit and train this talent, it retains it, with the business boasting only a 1.1% turnover rate when we speak with them.
With that talent pool at its disposal, over £4 million in investments over the last four years, and its data and knowledge-driven approach to coffee, Bryson has plenty of reasons to be cheerful.
“I sit here excited for the future as we are in a halcyon period where everything is going well for us,” Bryson says. “We will never be complacent but the future for Lincoln & York has never been brighter. We are investing in our team, our business and our customers. With the insights we have, we will double the business by 2026. Although we are celebrating our 30th year, it feels like we are at the start of an exciting new phase of development for the business.”
