Union was created to make coffee better for everyone
We’re pioneers in two things, which we have relentless focus on; ROASTING and ETHICAL SOURCING
We roast exciting, hard-to-find speciality coffee
Step into our east London roastery and you’ll find Union roastmasters stood over our Probat and Loring roasters, tending to each small batch with care. Our roastmasters are experts at bringing the best flavour out of each particular coffee.
We roast all our coffee fresh to order, which means you receive it as fresh and tasty as it gets.
We source the finest coffee from farmers we believe in
We call ourselves Union because we couldn’t make great coffee without our partners—the farmers that grow the exclusive gems we share with you. In return, we pay them a fair price so they can invest in their farm, families and workers. We work with our partners long-term, towards constantly improving the quality of coffee and livelihoods. We call it Union Direct Trade, and we’re proud that we were one of the first roasters in the UK to trade directly with coffee farmers.
Today, we work in 14 countries with over 42 producer partners to bring you an ever changing selection of delicious coffees, from our house blends to single origins and exciting microlots.
How it all started
Union was founded in 2001 by Steven Macatonia and Jeremy Torz, two scientists who went to buzzing San Francisco in the 90s and discovered an artisan coffee scene that didn’t yet exist in the UK.
Deciding to bring the west coast back to London, they quit their day jobs and started roasting in their parents’ garden shed. A few years later, having learned more about coffee sourcing and the devastation faced by coffee farmers as the world coffee price dropped, they decided to start a roastery with a new sourcing approach – Union Direct Trade.
Union is founded on the principle of marrying high quality speciality coffee with responsible sourcing, making coffee better for everyone from drinkers to farmers. Steven and Jeremy travelled the world to find farmer partners to work with (we still work with our first ever farmer partner, Maraba from Rwanda), assembled a brilliant team and became one of the first specialty coffee roasters in the UK.
Today, Union has improved lives of more than 65,000 individuals in coffee producing countries, and we’re proud to have won The Queen’s Award for Sustainable Enterprise in 2017 for our pioneering sourcing model.