PARTNER CONTENT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now, with 2025 drawing to a close, Food Chain reconnects with Ian to discuss the business’ recent investments and take a deeper dive into its product development processes. He begins our conversation by unveiling Lincoln & York’ s most significant investment of 2025.
“ Over the last six years, we’ ve invested over £ 10 million into the business. In 2025, we invested over £ 1 million in a highspeed packing line to help us pack bags for the hospitality industry,” he shares.“ This is a large, fully-automated line which will give us greater speed and scale to win in new markets, such as the bakery and sandwich sector, which is one of the fastest growing markets out there.”
Data-driven development
With the equipment to further increase its efficiency and overall capacity, Lincoln & York is well-positioned to unlock new opportunities. Most of its products are bespoke; all expertly crafted to their unique profiles, brands, and specifications. As such, the company is always adding new products to its portfolio and, with over 600 different coffee blends sourced from more than 40 origins across the world, Lincoln & York’ s capabilities are endless. When it comes to product development, the business boasts a wide assortment of coffee roasters all varying in size, so that each blend can be perfected before scaling. This also includes one of the country’ s largest roasters at around 600 kilos, a far cry from the business’ beginnings of hand roasting in a garden shed. Combined with a dedicated team of four in-house Q graders, Lincoln & York’ s customers can be sure that they’ re receiving a product that’ s crafted with passion and expertise. Ian elaborates further on the company’ s approach to research and development.
Ian Bryson
“ One of the key differences between Lincoln & York and other coffee roasters in the market is that we employ our own data and insight manager. We invest significantly in retail and out-of-home data so that we can understand exactly what’ s happening with current sales across the market and what our customers will need,” he explains.“ We use the VYPR software system, which allows us to put several market research questions out to a panel of people and gain almost instant responses. It gives us data and insight that we can then take into the coffee lab where our development team and Q graders can develop new blends for customers – whether experimenting with new origins
104