Inside the brand new Blueprint Espresso manufacturing headquarters in St. Louis. Photograph by Roy Brady, courtesy of Blueprint Espresso.

Specialty espresso firm Blueprint Espresso is prepared for a excessive rise in manufacturing with the opening of a brand new roastery and forthcoming headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Inside an 11,000-square-foot constructing that previously housed a Kroger grocery retailer within the Tiffany neighborhood, the brand new roastery is exponentially rising Blueprint’s roasting and storage capacities, whereas permitting for a brand new cafe, bakery and workplaces. Blueprint was beforehand roasting at its Delmar Boulevard cafe, with inexperienced espresso storage largely offsite. 

Manufacturing roaster Alex Eppenauer (left) and manufacturing assistant Ben Nilsen. Photograph by Roy Brady, courtesy of Blueprint Espresso.

“Local weather-controlled storage was a giant precedence with the brand new house,” Blueprint Espresso Co-founder Mike Marquad instructed Each day Espresso Information. “For the previous 5-7 years, we had been storing inexperienced espresso in a pair completely different offsite places. Shifting it amongst areas was very time consuming and really bodily difficult.”

The corporate’s 1937 Gothot 23-kilogram roaster is up and operating within the new constructing, the place Blueprint Espresso Manufacturing Supervisor and Co-founder Mazi Razani leads a crew churning out about 1,800-2,000 kilos of roasted espresso per week. Further house is reserved for a second roaster.

“We constructed out this house to accommodate progress,” stated Marquad, “however it is available in waves.” 

Blueprint Espresso’s first was was its founding in 2013 by Marquad, Razani, Kevin Reddy, Andrew Timko, Brian Levine and Nora Brady.

Photograph by Roy Brady, courtesy of Blueprint Espresso.

The newest wave is in response to gowing on-line gross sales and wholesale orders, elevated demand for chilly brew, and the anticipated wants of the forthcoming fourth Blueprint cafe.  

The chilly brew demand has spiked by way of a partnership with native beverage distributor Craft Republic, in keeping with the corporate. 

“Our chilly brew demand is already up by about 800%,” stated Marquad. “We’re brewing a number of chilly brew with native brewers Principal & Mill out of Festus, Missouri. It’s been nice to have extra enter and path to present our co-packers/brewers, as we had been utilizing co-packers exterior the metro space for the final couple of years. We now have an excellent accomplice and look to increase our Linear model of RTD product in 2025.”

Assistant manufacturing supervisor Marija Lajsic. Photograph by Roy Brady, courtesy of Blueprint Espresso.

Because the mud settles on the brand new digs, Blueprint plans to additionally add a coaching middle and a quality-control facility.

“We’d like to get much more inventive and useful with the quantity of house we now have at HQ,” stated Marquad. “This stuff take time, and funding, so we’re being affected person and attempting to verify we proceed to assist our crew and present prospects, who assist us so properly.”

Co-owner and manufacturing supervisor Mazi Razani. Photograph by Roy Brady, courtesy of Blueprint Espresso.

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