The high demand for good coffee is met by several Swedish coffee roasteries, many of them family-run companies with a lengthy history of choosing the best beans and knowing how to roast them to perfection.
An increased awareness of issues such as environmental impacts, climate change, biodiversity and social responsibility has contributed to the dramatic increase in the proportion of organic coffee produced by Swedish roasteries.
In this article, we highlight some of the actors within the Swedish market that drive development forward by offering organic and sustainably produced quality coffee.
Löfbergs Coffee Roastery
If you are invited for coffee by a Swede, there is a big chance that the coffee comes from Löfbergs Coffee Roastery, one of the largest family-owned coffee roasteries in the Nordic countries. Löfbergs is also one of the world’s largest purchasers of organic and Fairtrade-labelled coffee and buy all their coffee directly from the countries where it is grown. In addition to ground, brew-coffee and a variety of whole roasted beans, Löfbergs has started to develop cold coffee drinks. This effort has resulted, for example, in their organic, chilled coffee and milk blends sold under the brand name ICE.
Arvid Nordquist
Arvid Nordquist coffee roastery has been a purveyor to His Majesty the King since 1906. The roastery has one of the Nordic countries’ strongest sustainability brands. Included are organic varieties from coffee farms run by women, African blends that contribute to the protection of elephants and an extensive, flavourful organic selection. Arvid Nordquist roasts fossil-free using exclusively high quality and sustainably certified beans. The company works together with growers and buys beans that are certified EU-organic, KRAV, Fairtrade, and UTZ and Rainforest Alliance. The company also invests in tree cultivation projects in countries where coffee is grown in order to contribute to better living conditions and climate-change abatement.
Johan & Nyström
The Swedish market is also characterized by a number of smaller actors such as the Johan & Nyström coffee roastery, which is at the forefront of the coffee culture seen in many cafes today. Their coffee is roasted slowly according to the slow-roast method and the beans are purchased directly, without intermediaries, from selected coffee growers around the world. Johan & Nyströms coffee can be called a specialty coffee, but according to them, it a term used only to distinguish good coffee from mass-produced industrial coffee.
Eguale
Eguale (“equality” in English) is a 100% fair trade and organic brand of coffee, tea and chocolate with great taste and great values. Eguale wants the entire supply chain to be fair, from the farmer all the way to the consumer. As well as fair to coming generations. It is a high quality assortment of natural and clean products in eye-catching black packages embellished with drawings of colourful, exotic birds.
Kersh Coffee Roastery
The Kersh micro-roastery was founded on the simple idea of roasting high-quality coffee beans from individual farms, coffee cooperatives and areas where both people and the environment are treated with care. The coffee is roasted slowly and carefully in small batches of 25 kilograms in their facility in Gustavsberg, outside of Stockholm. Kersh’s range includes different types of roasts from light to dark, most of which are organic. The elegant Kersh packaging brightens the shelves of many cafés that want to showcase coffee from a micro-roastery.
Nordiska Coffee Roastery
The brothers Anders Widman and Thomas Anderberg founded the Nordiska Coffee Roastery with the aim of contributing to more sustainable coffee production. By offering only organic and Fairtrade certified products, they ensure that their coffee is produced under decent conditions. In addition, their coffee roastery outside Gothenburg runs on biogas. To further reduce their impact, they have developed new packaging that is 96% bio-based and completely free from aluminium. More development projects are underway to further minimize impact on the environment and climate, for example by reducing the amount of packaging materials and streamlining transport and distribution.
