York Coffee Emporium acquisition forms £6m turnover vending company

A York artisan coffee roasting business, which operates throughout the UK, has been acquired by one of Yorkshire’s biggest vending machine companies.

Based in Nether Poppleton, York Coffee Emporium has been bought by vending machines and refreshments systems supplier The Upton Group in Selby, for a significant but undisclosed sum.

York Coffee Emporium, which has grown from an £11k turnover to almost £800k in five years, was previously acquired by coffee enthusiasts, Laurence and Philippa Beardmore in 2011.

The business imports and hand-roasts coffees from around the world and supplies retail customers throughout the UK, including independent cafes, hotels, restaurants, businesses and tourist attractions.

In addition, York Coffee Emporium, which has grown from two to nine staff, also supplies wholesale buyers and individuals from as far as Cornwall and Scotland, who buy through its e-commerce site as well as sourcing and selling loose speciality teas. The Upton Group has been a York Coffee Emporium customer for three years.

Following the acquisition, Laurence Beardmore will remain closely involved with the running of York Coffee Emporium and will also become commercial director of The Upton Group. His wife will become operations manager for York Coffee Emporium.

Acquiring York Coffee Emporium, which will remain a stand-alone company, sees The Upton Group grow to a £6m turnover and 70 staff.

The Upton Group, which has acquired York Coffee Emporium from its own resources, also has bases in Scarborough and Hull and supplies a wide range of refreshment systems for dispensing hot and cold drinks, confectionary and snacks, fresh foods and sandwiches, chilled water as well as artisan, hand-roasted coffees to a wide spectrum of enterprises from SMEs to international businesses throughout the UK.

Ross MacDonald, managing director, said: “This acquisition brings together two successful family businesses with a similar ethos to create a broader-based company which will benefit all our staff and current and prospective customers.

“As well as bringing a talented team and top-class products into the Upton Group, acquiring York Coffee Emporium takes a margin out of our business. Our annual turnover has risen by 16 per cent annually since 2012 but we now have 36 per cent projected growth in 2016-2017.”

Laurence Beardmore added: “Both we and the Upton Group realised that it would make perfect sense for us to become a single entity and it was just a matter of timing. Our growth has been helped by the fact that customers, whether they are buying a drink in a hospital vending machine or from a café at a major tourist attraction, see themselves as coffee connoisseurs and expect the best.

“We have grown tremendously in the last five years but had got close to our ceiling with our previous structure. This acquisition gives us a platform to reach the next level but it has always been very important to us that we should remain part of a family business rather than an impersonal corporate body.

“Becoming part of the Upton Group will allow us to go for bigger national clients and offer a wider range of services, training and technology and we are all excited by the opportunities it offers.”

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