Masteroast Coffee Co to build £1.5m warehouse

By Rod Addy

- Last updated on GMT

Left to right: Masteroast's Fawkes, chairman Les Mills and group commercial director Matthew Mills
Left to right: Masteroast's Fawkes, chairman Les Mills and group commercial director Matthew Mills

Related tags Drinks Supply chain

Masteroast Coffee Co has commissioned the construction of a £1.5m standalone warehouse, which can store 2,500 pallets in the Fengate industrial district of Peterborough and is set to create 20 jobs.

The company, which currently employs 120 staff, hopes the 1,176m2​ facility, which has been funded from business loans acquired through bank funding, will be completed by the end of July 2021. It is designed to support the supply of other business-to-business and consumer markets in the UK and internationally. Masteroast said it would feature a computerised warehouse management system and wire-guided forklifts.

The Masteroast Group is one of the largest UK coffee importers and roasters, and is behind many well-known, high quality coffee brands, sold in foodservice, retail and e-commerce channels. It roasts and packs more than 70 varieties of raw coffee at its 3,716m2​ factory, which has 14 packing lines with a wide range of capabilities, handling weights from 7g sachets up to 500kg bulk sacks. It said the construction project had been fuelled by the need to meet demand created by increased at-home consumption and e-commerce growth.

Isurus Fulfilment, a Masteroast subsidiary that already manages 50,000 monthly orders from well-known websites and high street brands will operate the warehouse.

'An international company'

“Masteroast has become an international company over the past ten years, trading globally and with its own operation in South America, so it is pleasing to invest further in Peterborough, which has been our home now for 30 years," ​said Masteroast managing director Andy Fawkes.

Isurus fulfilment manager Ben Tarratt said: “We are looking forward to having room to grow and further develop our industry-leading warehouse management software systems."

The depot was designed by Masteroast’s appointed architects PDG Architects and is being built by PGR Construction, which are both based in the Peterborough area.

2019 sales and profit up

In its latest set of accounts filed at Companies House, covering the year to 31 December 2019, the Masteroast Coffee Co reported sales of £24.4m, up 9% on the prior year. Operating profit reached £2.46m, up from £1.98m in the previous year. However, the company, which was established in 1981 cautioned it could not predict what the impact of COVID-19 would be.

Rounding off his statement, chairman Les Mills stated: "The very last sentence of my 2018 chairman's statement read as follows: 'The one prediction I feel confident in making is that Masteroast is eminently equipped financially and with a great team of people to weather whatever the gods of confusion have in store.' Needless to say a global pandemic was not one of the misfortunes many of us might have imagined!"

However, he said the business had the financial strength and the robust confidence and determination of its staff to emerge able to take advantage of international economic recovery post-COVID-19.

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