Phil Smith at United Coffee in Dartford

by Lizzie Massey

Sipping your favourite Italian-style coffee - Ethiopian Mocha, Indonesian Java, or Colombian, Kenyan or Peruvian blends - you might be surprised to hear that it was probably roasted, blended, packaged and sold just down the road.

United Coffee, one of the largest producers in Europe, has a roastery in the Riverside Industrial Estate, Dartford.

It is a pleasant surprise stepping out of your car at a busy industrial estate and being hit with the rich smell of coffee, but for the 78 largely Dartford-based employees it is just another day at the office.

About 1% of the world's coffee bean exports are sent to the Dartford factory to be roasted every year.

It does not sound like a lot, but coffee is the second largest traded product world-wide after oil and 1% actually accounts for 9,000 tons, or about one billion cups of coffee each year.

A sample of roasted and un-roasted coffee beans from United Coffee

Phil Smith, category manager at the roastery, said: "It's great recognition for Dartford, but also for the country as a whole, even in tough economic times the UK coffee market is booming."

The company provides whole bean and ground coffee world-wide to 5-star restaurants and hotels and top end independent cafes.

They also supply the blend for the world's largest fast-food restaurant chain and a well-known UK high street bakers and pastry shop.

The Dartford factory also roasts the popular Lyons retail brand, which is also the only company in the UK to do coffee bags, a convenient invention which gives that filter coffee taste, without the time or fuss of a cafetiere.

United Coffee, which roasts about 70,000 tons of coffee a year, was voted the Best Coffee Roaster in Europe by coffee industry members across the continent.

United Coffee in Riverside Way, Dartford

Phil said: "It's great because that was an award from our peers and I think it's mainly down to people here in the UK steadily becoming coffee connoisseurs, helping the industry go from strength to strength.

"The population is getting more educated about coffee, with coffee shops providing a place to drink and socialise and people going abroad more, experiencing new blends and tastes.

"I think coffee is still seen very much as an affordable treat and as people discover what they like, they are going looking for stronger, better-quality drinks here in the UK."