A current CEE roastery installation. Courtesy photo.
Belgian private-label coffee roasting company Beyers Koffie is creating what is likely to be the world’s largest all-electric industrial roastery.
According to green coffee trading company Sucafina — the roaster’s parent company — the reconstructed roastery will boast a capacity of 20,000 metric tons of coffee (about 44 million pounds) per year. Located in Beyers’ existing production facility in Puur-Sint-Amands, Belgium, the roastery will eliminate the use of all fossil fuels in the roasting process.
The technology behind the new roastery is coming from the Belgian firm CEE, a company that specializes in energy-efficient production machinery. CEE has previously custom-built systems for chocolate-maker Barry Callebaut, and it created a solar-powered electric roasting system for Belgian roaster Ray & Jules.
The fully electric CEE machinery can be connected to any source of renewable energy, such as solar or wind.
“We are on the brink of a clean industry revolution,” CEE CEO Koen Bosmans said in an announcement from Sucafina. “Our collective goal is to implement this game-changing technology across the entire coffee sector at an industrial scale.”
Sucafina declined to share the estimated project cost with DCN. A representative of the company said they are in ongoing conversations with government entities regarding potential funding incentives related to clean energy initiatives.
“I firmly believe that we need to play our part in reshaping the coffee industry for the better,” Sucafina CEO Nicolas A. Tamari said in an announcement this week. “To encourage society as a whole to make more responsible choices, companies must take the lead.”
While traditional roasting machinery has relied on natural gas or propane in order to heat coffee, a number of manufacturers old and new have come forth in recent years with all-electric options. However, all-electric options to this point have largely been available only for smaller-scale roasting equipment, from small sample roasters up to Probat’s recent P12 E machine.
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