UCC Coffee Benelux successfully roasts coffee using Hydrogen!

A small sip of coffee today, a big leap for clean energy tomorrow!

On the 1st of September 2025 UCC Coffee Benelux, DNV, Summit Engineering and NOM proudly celebrated a major step forward in decarbonizing the coffee industry. UCC Coffee Benelux and the DNV testing team successfully roasted coffee beans using various blends of hydrogen and natural gas, including blends fully roasted on hydrogen - demonstrating the potential of cleaner coffee production.

Frontrunner in sustainable coffee roasting technology

UCC Coffee Benelux, located in Bolsward in the Northern Netherlands, is one of Europe’s largest coffee roasteries and specialized in delivering high-quality private label coffee to both retail and out-of-home markets across several European countries. UCC Coffee Benelux is part of the Japanese Ueshima Coffee Company (UCC), a family owned business and a global top-five independent coffee company, with operations in Japan, Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The Bolsward production facility employs around 180 people and produces approximately 27 million tons of coffee annually, making it an important employer in the region. The H2Café project, initiated by UCC Coffee Benelux and NOM, is a pioneering effort to decarbonize coffee roasting at UCC’s Bolsward facility.

“UCC Coffee Benelux currently uses natural gas to roast coffee, but our ambition is to become a fully carbon-neutral production facility and contribute to our global sustainability goals”, according to Klaas Oostenbrink, Finance Director of UCC Coffee Benelux. “UCC is deeply committed to fostering sustainability throughout the coffee industry and has the ambition to be fully carbon neutral by 2040. In Bolsward, we already use green electricity , partially generated by our own solar panels and use high-efficiency burners and optimized roasting batch sizes to reduce carbon emissions, while maintaining the high-quality coffee for our customers. Our next major step towards carbon neutrality at our Bolsward production facility, is the transition from natural gas roasted coffee to hydrogen-based roasting. The coffee industry faces significant challenges and finds itself at a turning point. We are committed to be at the forefront of the transition towards a new era in coffee roasting”.

Jeroen de Jager, Site Director of UCC Coffee Benelux, adds: “Our expectation is that it will take too long to solve the electricity grid congestions in the Netherlands, making electrified coffee roasting an unfeasible option for us. Our choice to explore the use of hydrogen to roast coffee, fits perfectly with the UCC group initiative in Japan and the local project ‘Energycity Bolsward’ - a regional initiative led by the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân aimed at transforming Bolsward into a hub for sustainable energy systems, with a strong focus on green hydrogen. Besides a significant reduction in carbon emissions, hydrogen roasting unlocks more flavours in the coffee. We strongly believe this will change the experience of coffee consumers”.

The innovation process

As a regional development agency, one of the roles of the Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands (NOM) is to facilitate entrepreneurial innovation. One manner in which they do that is through ‘challenged-based innovation’ projects. The goal is to take a local company with a vision for an innovation that would make their processes more sustainable, and match them with a party who has the expertise to realize it through a competition-style selection process. Once a match is made, the parties agree to work together for an extended period on a solution to this sustainability challenge. The NOM adds its expertise in order to scout for potential solution providers, provide access to its network, and offer the support of its business developers and project managers.

In 2024 the NOM and UCC Coffee Benelux, launched a challenge to the industry via the TopDutch Innovation Challenge: preparing one of the existing coffee roasters of UCC Coffee Benelux to be fit for hydrogen. DNV Technology Centre Groningen and Summit Engineering, both located in Groningen (Netherlands), took up this challenge to develop the solution. The consortium started their journey together in this H2Café project.

DNV (headquartered in Norway) is an independent provider of assurance and risk management services, operating in over 100 countries. Driven by its purpose of safeguarding life, property, and the environment, DNV helps organizations enhance safety, quality, and sustainability. The Technology Centre in Groningen supports the development and validation of sustainable solutions, with a focus on scaling hydrogen technologies for the energy transition. It combines advanced testing with industrial expertise to bring innovative technologies to market.

Johan Knijp, Business Development Lead at DNV, highlights the uniqueness of the project: “Retrofitting existing roasters for hydrogen is a cost-effective solution. At our test facility in Groningen, we’ve combined UCC’s deep roasting expertise with our own advanced knowledge of hydrogen combustion, burner technology and safety. The developed solution enables 100% hydrogen, 100% natural gas, or blends of 20% or 50% hydrogen, offering UCC the flexibility to tailor hydrogen usage based on availability, cost, and operational requirement - without the need to fully replace their current roasters —a first in the coffee industry. ”

Summit Engineering, based in Groningen (Netherlands), is a project and consultancy firm specialized in the energy transition. The company supports businesses in reducing carbon emissions by managing projects from concept to commissioning, with a focus on integrating system components into fully functional energy solutions. With deep expertise in hydrogen technologies, system integration, and decarbonization strategies, Summit Engineering delivers practical and cost-effective solutions that contribute to a CO₂-neutral future.

Robbert van der Pluijm, Founder and Project Manager Hydrogen Systems at Summit, explains that there is more to it, then just a validated technical roasting solution: “Roasting coffee with hydrogen presents a significant technical challenge, but UCC’s roastery in Bolsward also needs to be safely and efficiently connected to hydrogen infrastructure. This is a key-part of the project and where Summit’s expertise and perseverance truly adds value to the project. Moreover, this project is a true example of effective teamwork, with each partner contributing their unique strengths, coming together to deliver the best possible solution.”

Next step: World Expo Osaka 2025

The results of the H2Café project will be presented at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, on September 24. In the meantime, the UCC-led consortium continues to test and validate the solution, while preparing for its implementation at the UCC production site in Bolsward.

Additional information about the TopDutch Innovation Challenge can be found at https://www.topdutch.com/topdutch-innovation-challenge/