About Us : Our Story

Will and Caroline Little founded Roastworks in 2014 but for them, starting a coffee business was a lifetime in the making.

Where it began

You could say Will's childhood was a tad unusual. As the child of two artisan roasters, he grew up surrounded by coffee sacks and beans. His parents were at the forefront of the Second Wave in artisan coffee when they started roasting in the late eighties.

He was adamant “not to do the coffee thing” and instead became a graphic designer. But, while working in London, he became inspired by the work of roasters like Monmouth and Square Mile and the emerging Third Wave coffee scene.

Roastworks was born

His parents sold their business and he was getting sick of London, so moved back to Devon with his wife Caroline, bought a small roasting machine and set up a speciality coffee roastery based on the Third Wave coffee principles. Roastworks Coffee Co. was born.


Since our inception in 2014, we've learnt a lot and achieved even more. We now proudly supply Waitrose, Tesco, Wholefoods, Ocado as well as some fantastic independent shops and cafes.

Our business is heavily retail-focused. We’ve always wanted to bring better coffee to the consumer market. It strikes us as strange that speciality coffee is still under-represented in the retail sector and we’re taking strides to redress this balance.