Business Spotlight: Swift River Roasters

If you think about it, coffee connects a community in so many unique ways, linking us to each other over a cup, enlivening our taste buds and our senses, and fostering an appreciation of nature, where coffee beans are grown and harvested. Raymond’s Swift River Roasters launched in 2010 in conjunction with The Good Life Market and continues to build a solid reputation for roasting top quality green beans from around the world into delicious brews to fill local coffee cups.    

Swift River Roasters’ roasting facility is on Roosevelt Trail in Raymond with retail coffee and coffee drinks available right next door at the company’s flagship store, The Good Life Market, 1297 Roosevelt Trail, as well as at many other local locations.

“We small batch roast our coffee every week, so the product going out to our customers is super fresh,” said Linda Manchester, Swift River Roasters co-owner. “In addition to our wide range of standard offerings of single origin coffees, proprietary blends, and flavored coffees, we do private labeling for local markets, and we’ve worked with wholesale customers to develop custom blends to their unique tastes.”

Manchester said that Swift River Roasters has recently partnered with PFG Northcenter as a wholesale distributor, which allows them to serve a broader base of restaurants and retail establishments.

“In the Lakes Region, we’re available at The Good Life Market, Mills and Co., The Umbrella Factory, Windham Hannaford, Kelly’s Sebago Diner, Knight’s Cafe Naples, Chipman’s Farmstand Raymond, Standish Café, and Chutes' Cafe Casco. We ship wholesale and retail coffee directly to customers all over the country; we roast for a coffee company in Nashville, Tennessee, and for a medical software design company in Scottsdale, Arizona,” Manchester said. “PFG Northcenter distributes our coffee throughout Maine and New Hampshire, and we deliver directly to retail establishments throughout Southern Maine.”

Manchester said that the slogan for Swift River Roasters is “We’re here for you,” and that truly epitomizes the company’s basic business philosophy in every sense.  

“Swift River is top quality, delicious, no nonsense coffee that’s locally roasted, packaged and distributed, and we’re available all over the Lakes Region,” she said. “If we're not in your neighborhood, let us know and we’ll see how we can fix that. We’re responsive to our customers and to our staff. We’re dedicated to quality and consistency; we all drink our coffee every day, so we’re in constant contact with the product. We’re available locally in many different locations and we’re willing and eager to expand and grow our brand into other markets.”

According to Manchester, wholesale coffee roasting is the most significant aspect of the Swift River Roasters business.

“We’re focused on seeing our coffee represented widely in the marketplace. We roast high quality coffee, produce distinctive blends, and sell them at a great value,” she said. “We’re sized right to continue to offer our wholesale customers personalized service and support. We’re fortunate to be in a market where craft coffee roasting is established, and consumers are savvy about what they taste.  Mainers love coffee, and that means good business for all of us in the industry.”

Offering an exceptional quality product is paramount to Swift River  Roasters and that starts where the coffee beans are grown.

“We source our beans through an importer who works with different coffee growing countries,” Manchester said. “We follow the trends in the coffee world through the publications and conferences of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, and through networking with others in the industry.  We strive to stay up to date, but also down to earth; just like our mindset at The Good Life Market, our goal is for our coffee to be exceptional but approachable. We’re very hands-on with the business and with our customers, making sure that our coffee is well received and a successful product for our retailers.”

“Our coffee represents a great value in the marketplace, and our pricing is quite competitive. As with any international agricultural crop, coffee pricing is affected by weather and the political landscape, but we strive to keep the cost to the customer consistent and accessible,” Manchester said.

For wholesale inquiries about Swift River Roasters, call 207-655-3243; for retail inquiries, call 207-655-1196.  They also ship directly through their website www.swiftrivercoffee.com and you can follow them on Facebook or Instagram @swiftrivercoffeeroasters <