Our History

Founded by Zach Chipp in 2016, a wealth of experience and skills have gone into the development of our carefully crafted coffee products, beginning back when Zach was just 18 years old.

From humble beginnings as a bartender working in Leeds City Centre at Jamie’s Italian, Zach quickly rose to bar trainer for the North region, including creating espresso based cocktails and teaching other bar workers across Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and beyond.

The Big Smoke

Moving on to work for coffee supplier, Musetti, Zach was recruited to provide barista training to the whole restaurant group, as well as working as an Account Manager for the business, in London. Looking after globally recognised partners including hotels including The Savoy, Claridges and The Ritz. The role also offered up the opportunity to travel, which further helped Zach broaden his knowledge within the commercial Italian coffee market.

During Zach’s time in London, specialty coffee was becoming an emerging market and when a friend opened the very first Gentleman Baristas coffee shop, Zach jumped at the chance to work in the business as a barista and learn everything he could about specialty coffee.

He quickly learned all he could about coffee roasting, and began to test out his own roasting skills, using a small popcorn machine at home. Although not the most ideal piece of equipment, it allowed Zach to learn the process of roasting and drew him to invest more time in this side of his knowledge.

Returning to the North

At that time, coffee roasting in the UK was much more niche, compared to the number of roasteries today. Eventually, Zach was offered a job back up North in York, as a trainee coffee roaster in York Coffee Emporium. Working in a large commercial grade coffee roasting business allowed Zach to really hone his skills and broaden his knowledge.

After a number of years at YCE, Zach was promoted to Head Roaster. He headed up green coffee purchasing, ran a manufacturing facility and oversaw quality control. It turns out, he had a flair for quality control and a natural palette for coffee tasting, leading to a desire to devote more time to specialty coffee. The sensory side of coffee was a huge draw and as he began speaking to more and more people, trying to find a way to spend more time in this area of the coffee industry.

...And then even further North

Soon after, a friend got in touch with Zach to connect him with the owner of a coffee consultancy business, up in Edinburgh. The owner was looking for a lab assistant and sensory analyst, which was the perfect opportunity. Working as a sub-contracted consultant, via Coffee Nexus, Zach was able to learn a great deal from sample analysis, including some of the most expensive ‘Cup of Excellence’ competition coffees and creating blends and providing quality control for large, well-known capsule coffee brands.

Around the same time in 2016, Zach launched Chipp Coffee Co., using the knowledge he had been developing to start establishing his own brand and own products.

During this busy time, working as a consultant and launching the Chipp brand, Zach was mentored and learned how to run his own coffee consultancy business. Zach’s mentor, John, also provided him with some great opportunities to take on independent consulting roles. This enabled Zach to work with businesses all over the world, including; Bahrain, Dubai, Jamaica, Italy and across the UK.

Back down t' Yorkshire

After a few years, Zach moved back to Leeds and decided to amplify the offering of Chipp Coffee Co., turning it into a full coffee roasting business. Through much hard work, maintaining consultancy jobs and reinvesting everything back into the business, Chipp Coffee Co. has gone from strength to strength. The company continues to grow, and is well-known for unique blends, flavours and a high quality product for everyone.