Noosa’s Padre Coffee acquired by investment firm Liverpool Partners to expand nationally

One of the Sunshine Coast’s largest coffee roasters aims to become an established national brand after being purchased by major investment company Liverpool Partners.

One of the Sunshine Coast’s most prominent coffee roasters has sold his business to national investment company Liverpool Partners in a bid to take the company across Australia.

Noosa-based Padre Coffee will partner with Sydney roaster Seven Mile Coffee Roasters as part of the deal.

Both businesses will be managed by Seven Miles Coffee Roasters’ newly established parent company 7MCC under Liverpool Partners’ portfolio of coffee entities which also includes Australian Beverage Corporation.

Marinus Jansen founded Padre in 2008 at Brunswick in Victoria as a roastery and cafe before launching his largest venue in Noosaville in March, 2016 after relocating to the region with his family.

Its acquisition will see Liverpool Partners become Padre’s majority shareholder with Mr Jansen retaining his role as Padre’s business director.

Mr Jansen said selling Padre to Liverpool would allow his business to gain a stronger and swifter foothold in the New South Wales and Sydney markets.

Padre Coffee founder and director Marinus Jansen

He said his long-term goal was for Padre to be a recognised brand in more states and territories.

“The main question we’ve been asking ourselves for the last five years is ‘when are we going to open in Sydney and Adelaide?’,” Mr Jansen said.

“People naturally gravitate to good things and we’ve done that in Melbourne and Queensland, so the next step for us is to look at Sydney and try to manage growth without going overboard.

“The Sydney market is very different to the Melbourne and Queensland market. In terms of our current size, I think it will be significant for us to grow there.”

Mr Jansen started Padre with two staff with a single roasting site heating through 50kg of green coffee a week.

About 30 per cent of all Padre's coffee is roasted from their Noosaville cafe and roastery

Fourteen years later and Mr Jansen’s company now roasts from Brunswick and Noosaville for more than 100 cafes with about 40 staff across five locations, roasting between 4-4.5 tonnes of beans in seven days.

His Noosa site produced about 30 per cent of the company’s coffee.

Australia’s wholesale coffee industry is estimated to be worth $2.5bn and was growing at a rate of about two per cent a year as the industry recovered from Covid-19 impacts.

Seven Miles Coffee Roasters chief executive Jenny Willits said Padre would operate individually under the 7MCC banner and would collaborate with the Sydney-based business on ways to distribute coffee across retail, cafes, and the broader consumer market.

She said they anticipate “significant” long term gains and a quick return on investment from the partnership.

Seven Miles Coffee Roasters CEO and 7MCC Director Jenny Willits

“The heartland for Seven Miles is very wholesale focused, Padre has a business which has cafe sites, and their business is a good mix of wholesale, retail and a good growing online e-commerce sale as well,” Ms Willits said.

“We’ll focus on heartland channels first and bring their blends and other product offerings through other channels in a way to ensure they don’t denigrate the specialty rating especially of Padre.

“We’ll be looking at different consumer channels over time.”

Mr Jansen said the new partnership gave Padre freedom to pursue growth while retaining its ethos of having a positive work culture.

“We’ve never really been a company that focuses on the bottom line, for us it’s always been about creating sustainable partnerships and that’s quite hard in today’s market,” he said.

“There are some definite advantages of being a bigger group in terms of buying power, resources and people and consolidating the admin side of the business.”

Originally published as Noosa’s Padre Coffee acquired by investment firm Liverpool Partners to expand nationally