Matthew Algie

Around 90% of Matthew Algie green coffee comes from certified sources. The company has contributed over $3million (US) to community and farm projects through Fairtrade levies to date. The remainder of its green coffee comes from independent coffee farmers, with whom the company has direct trading relationships. Matthew Algie uses traditional Probat drum roasting and is thought to be one of the few coffee roasters to use cryogenics to produce its ground coffee. Matthew Algie sells both filter and espresso coffees, including a triple certified espresso coffee (Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic).

In 1997 Matthew Algie launched Espresso Warehouse (with the strapline ‘Everything but the Coffee’) to support the growing wave of independent coffee bars. Espresso Warehouse products are sold to coffee retailers in the UK and Ireland as well as through distributors in Europe. Products are now largely third party brands and include tea (Suki tea and Sir Henry brand), hot chocolate (Chocolate Abyss), syrups (Da Vinci), biscuits and cookies (including The Fine Cookie Co) alongside a wide range of barista equipment and coffee bar hardware.

Matthew Algie (born 1814 in Greenock, Scotland, died 1906) was a grocer who sold tea that had been imported to Scotland on the Clyde Clippers. He established Matthew Algie the tea blending and wholesaling business in 1864. For around 80 years, and through two World Wars, the business sold tea and spices to retailers in the Glasgow area. In 1950 the company, then known as Algie’s, started selling coffee to post-war Glasgow, along with vending services under the management of Grace Williamson, at the time the only female tea buyer in Scotland. As the business grew, in 1964 the company moved from Cadogan Street south of the River Clyde to the current site in the Dixon Blazes Industrial Estate in The Gorbals^[1] area of Glasgow.

Following a visit to Vancouver^[2] in the late 1970's, Charles 'Charlie' Williamson, a descendent of Matthew Algie found new opportunities to tackle competitive pressure from the growing supermarket sector in the UK on its tea business. Focus gradually shifted instead to selling coffee and coffee machines for offices, restaurants and hotels, replacing instant coffee with roast and ground coffee.

In the 1980s the business went through a period of rapid expansion, going UK-wide opening an office and showroom in London while adding bulk-brew and fully automatic and traditional espresso machines to the portfolio. During this period the business developed significant market share in the 4/5-star hotel and premium restaurant markets including the Conran restaurant group. While growth was largely driven by coffee in the hospitality sector, in the early 90's the business made a foray into retail tea launching the Scottish Choice^[3] brand with major retailers, supported by TV advertising.

Much like his father’s visit to Canada in the 1970’s, in 1995, David Williamson, 6^th generation descendant of Matthew Algie, visited Seattle and Portland in the US Pacific Northwest and had his own ‘epiphany’, returning to refocus the company with a view to driving the espresso revolution in the UK. David’s vision as Managing Director was to pump prime the market through education with operators and consumers alike, while building a solid foundation of expertise in espresso and sourcing within the business.

A collaboration with Butler’s Wharf Chef School launched the UK’s first ‘Coffee School’ in London, aimed at hospitality professionals interested in bringing emergent US coffee culture to their operations. The original syllabus covered marketing, coffee and espresso science and barista skills. Course venues soon expanded in Scotland and Ireland, the latter a new market for the business as it opened an office in Dublin in 1996. The commitment to training remains to this day, on-site with clients and across the SCA approved campuses.

Back at the roastery the team were busy building an understanding espresso at a time when UK espresso largely followed traditional Italian norms. Research projects with the University of Strathclyde combined traditional cupping expertise with cutting edge consumer and expert sensory modelling to build an understanding of modern espresso blending and roasting^[4][5]. The company made a significant investment in its roasting capabilities in 1998, focusing roastery design on freshness with coffee packed almost immediately after roasting. This culminated in the launch of its Freshly Roasted coffee range with premium sourced espresso, on-line digital printing of client logos and a weekly roast calendar to drive fresh coffee orders for clients.

While its understanding of espresso grew, sourcing at the business developed in parallel towards a more direct and sustainable approach, with Matthew Algie launching the UK’s first Fairtrade espresso in 1997, followed by the World’s first triple-certified espresso in 2004 under its Tiki brand (Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic). Key to this was establishing long-term relationships with producer partners; the first triple-cert coffee was produced with financial support from the business with the now defunct La Central co-operative before sources were expanded in Peru, Ethiopia and Indonesia, again underpinned with financial investment from the business.

Wanting to better understand the commercial challenges and opportunities in the emerging coffee shop market, the company launched Scotland’s first espresso cart in Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre in 1996 and the first of several Tinderbox locations in Glasgow’s Byres Road in 1998, partnering on both projects with Matthew Algie customer Carlo Ventisei. Tinderbox was the first of several projects with leading Glasgow based design agency Graven Images^[6] who also worked on the Matthew Algie brand identity and roastery interior during this period.

With the early 2000’s coffee crisis^[7] impacting producers globally, the business continued to focus on growing Fairtrade sourcing and sales. While recognising certification was not a necessarily a panacea, it saw the positive impact it could make within many of its producer partners. Working with Oxfam, La Central in Honduras, PPKGO in Indonesia and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Ethiopia the business developed and supported Progreso^[8][9], a producer owned retail café operation, championed by English actor, producer and trade justice campaigner Colin Firth^[10].

As the business moved through the 2000’s it grew market position with in-store café partnerships with Marks and Spencer^[11] (for whom the business first roasted in 1994), along with Sainsbury’s while on the high-street with Pret A Manger. At the same time the business successfully grew its core independent customer base on the back of continued innovation, marketing support and service.

Innovation continued with the establishment of the Coffee Police^[12], a guerilla marketing campaign complete with a fleet of fully branded “Coffee Police” cars, again collaboration again with Graven Images. Consumers could report crimes against coffee which in turn gave rise to sales leads for the business. Elsewhere seeing the value of owning the wider drinks category beyond coffee, the Espresso Warehouse team focused on product innovation. The strategy was simple, find new category opportunities, create products and develop in-house brands underpinned with uniqueness to protect margin and differentiate from widely available competitors. Sustainable sourcing and clean ingredients underpinned development.

In 2008, David Williamson died unexpectedly at the age of 42^[13]. The David Williamson Rwanda Foundation was set up in David’s memory.

The company remained in family ownership in a trust, continuing a period growth, building on the values and approach that had underpinned its success since the 1990's. During this time the business embarked on sourcing and development projects linked directly to client brands including Marks and Spencer^[14] and Sainsbury's^[15], the latter in partnership with Comic Relief. These multi-year programmes were underpinned by pillars in respect of climate change adaptation, gender equality and youth engagement. Back at the roastery the business installed its first solar generation capacity in 2012^[16] (dwarfed by the more recent installation^[17]) part of wider adoption of carbon reduction programme started in the 2000's and continued to this day. However, being mindful to always looking at sustainability beyond what can be the narrow lens of environment, the business began reporting on social, economic impacts alongside carbon reduction in 2014/2015 while reinforcing its commitment to its employees through the Investors in People best-in-class benchmarking programme.

In 2016 Matthew Algie was sold to Tchibo with the intention to retain the brand and possibly expand into existing Tchibo markets in central Europe.^[18] In 2024 Tchibo UK and Irish group companies merged under Matthew Algie, seen by some as an endorsement of the strength of the brand^[19]. Shortly thereafter, in 2025 the brand repositioned with a new website as a 'commercial' roaster focusing on segments such as the convenience sector in petrol stations, workplaces and hospitals^[20].