Why coffee roasters are continuing to collaborate

Key takeaways

• Collaboration in coffee serves as a strategic brand-building tool.
• Cross-category partnerships embed coffee into fashion, music, and wider culture.
• Roaster-to-roaster collaborations pool expertise, enhance credibility, and increase access to new audiences.
• Emotional differentiation matters as much as product innovation in specialty coffee.

Collaboration in coffee is nothing new. From joint sourcing projects to co-branded releases, the coffee industry has a long history of collective experimentation and innovation.

But as the specialty coffee sector grows in both size and cultural relevance, collaboration has taken on greater significance. What began as a community-driven exchange has evolved into a strategic tool, attracting interest not only from within the coffee industry but from fashion brands, luxury car companies, professional athletes, and more.

“Collaborations are brand-building first and product second,” says Stacey Britt Fitzgerald, the brand director at UK roaster Grind. “Born in Shoreditch, a neighbourhood shaped as much by design, fashion, art, and nightlife as by coffee, Grind has been about more than coffee culture since day one. 

“Collaborative projects let us operate in those adjacent spaces and express the brand beyond the coffee we serve.”

However, as roasters continue to face rising operational costs and the market becomes more saturated, collaborations with direct competitors are emerging as a strategic way to manage the costs of innovation and strengthen branding.

You may also like our article on whether the Weeknd’s collaboration with Blue Bottle is good for specialty coffee.

The benefits of collaboration in coffee

The trend of influencer and celebrity-backed coffee brands has grown as coffee has evolved into a lifestyle-driven category. These collaborations allow influential figures to borrow the coffee industry’s credibility, while roasters and brands gain prominence and reach new audiences. 

Collaborative partnerships are shaping the coffee industry’s marketing approach, but they must feel authentic to succeed.

“Cultural participation only works if you protect brand integrity,” Stacey says. “The partner must align with our brand personality – positivity, irreverence, creativity, and a design-led, playful spirit.”

Grind has collaborated with a number of iconic lifestyle brands, including Hello Kitty, Peanuts, and private member club SoHo House. 

“Collaborations function as cultural gateways,” Stacey adds. “They embed coffee into fashion, music, nostalgia, travel, and art, and they are about scale and relevance.

“Roaster-to-roaster collaborations, meanwhile, signal credibility and deepen respect within specialty coffee culture.”

Collaboration between competitors is growing

Collaborative projects between roasters – who are direct competitors – have become more prominent in recent years. In November 2025, well-known roasters Onyx Coffee Lab (US), La Cabra (Denmark), and Global Coffee Award winner Phil & Sebastian (Canada) collaborated on Project III. 

Notably, this isn’t Onyx Coffee Lab’s first roaster-to-roaster collaboration. In 2024, it partnered with fellow US roasters Proud Mary, Black and White, and Verve to collaborate on a Cup of Excellence-winning lot from Honduran producer Benjamin Paz. 

Each brand applied its own roasting style to the same coffee, packaging the results together as a comparative set. Rather than competing for exclusivity, the brands used the project to showcase how different roasting approaches can unlock distinct expressions of the same coffee. 

Project III had a similar approach to the CoE-winning Honduran coffee collab, but with a more international reach. Phil & Sebastian, Onyx, and La Cabra each selected a distinct lot (processed differently) from Finca La Negrita in Tolima, Colombia, and roasted it to reflect their individual philosophies and styles. The result is a comparative coffee-tasting experience that encompasses different processing methods and roasting approaches.

The project also sees three specialty coffee roasters, each with an international reputation and loyal followings, leveraging one another’s prestigious branding. Each roaster benefits individually while also supporting their peers’ growth.

Onyx opened the International Roasting Cooperative in 2024, in partnership with Dutch roaster Manhattan, allowing the US roaster to more easily expand into Europe than by establishing its own sourcing and roasting hub.

Leveraging La Cabra’s European presence, Project III also helps Onyx build a bigger European audience, while La Cabra can strengthen its North American presence, where it operates several locations in New York City. Phil & Sebastian also attracts a bigger international reach.

Why roaster collaborations are likely to grow

Direct competitor collaboration in specialty offers the potential for curated crossovers. Brands have opportunities to combine their respective strengths, audiences, and perspectives to create something that neither could produce alone.

“We took inspiration from craft breweries and how they collaborate rather than compete,” says Alex Philips of Oddkin Coffee Roasters in Bristol, UK. “We wanted to create something different that would spotlight other great roasters while also increasing our brand visibility.”

Oddkins has been collaborating with its UK peers since 2022 through its Blend Friends series. Each release pairs Oddkin with another independent roaster to co-create a limited edition blend, combining different roasting philosophies into a single product. 

Ongoing partnerships

Rather than treating collaboration as a one-off partnership, the format encourages dialogue between brands and invites both teams to contribute creatively to the final release.

“It allows us to reach a wider audience while celebrating other roasters that align with what we stand for,” Alex explains. “It’s a win for the roasters, but also for consumers, who get to enjoy exceptional quality.”

US roasters Dapper and Wise, Relevant Coffee, and Idle Hands took a similar approach, jointly purchasing and packaging a CoE-winning Nicaraguan competition lot. Another US brand, Spyhouse Coffee, partnered with eight other local roasters on the Minnesota Roasted range, a collaborative release built around a single Colombian Nariño lot.

Taken together, these examples suggest that roaster-to-roaster collaboration is evolving beyond a novelty. Whether centred on competition coffees, shared sourcing, or regional community initiatives, this approach enables brands to pool resources, exchange credibility and create unique coffee experiences.

As operational costs increase, it’s becoming harder to achieve true innovation on products alone. Leveraging the expertise, credibility, and audiences of other reputable brands is not only commercially sensible but also strategically adaptive. 

Whether rooted in knowledge exchange between roasters or in cross-category cultural partnerships, collaboration allows brands to strengthen their individual positions while elevating one another.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on why collaboration between roasters show there’s less appetite for competition.

Photo credits: Phil & Sebastian, Charlie McKay, Oddkin Coffee Roasters

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