About RoastWorksLviv.com

Built on the belief that Ukraine deserves better coffee

A Lviv-based specialty roastery, twelve people strong, with one shared obsession: sourcing the best green coffee we can find and roasting it in a way that does it justice. Every batch cupped. Every partner a named contact. Every delivery within 48 hours of roasting.

2018

Founded in Lviv

People on the team

120+

Wholesale partners

30kg

Giesen drum, 5 days a week

RoastWorksLviv.com founder examining a batch of freshly roasted single-origin beans

(01) — Our story

From one drum roaster to 120+ partners

RoastWorksLviv.com was founded in 2018 by Vasyl Kovalenko and Marta Shevchenko — a barista-turned-roaster and a green coffee buyer who had spent years importing commodity blends and growing frustrated with what they were offering Ukrainian café owners.

They rented a small warehouse unit on the edge of Lviv's Sykhiv district, bought a 12 kg drum roaster, and spent six months calibrating profiles before delivering their first wholesale bag. That first partner — a small specialty café on Rynok Square — is still with us today.

Over eight years we have grown the team, upgraded to a 30 kg Giesen roaster, opened a cupping room, and extended our footprint to Kyiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk and beyond. The mission hasn't changed: roast honest coffee, supply it fresh, help our partners brew it well.

(02) — Our mission

To make specialty coffee the standard, not the exception, in Ukraine.

We exist to close the quality gap between what Ukrainian café owners can access and what their customers increasingly expect — through rigorous sourcing, disciplined roasting, and the kind of after-sale support that makes our partners more confident in their coffee programme every week.

(03) — What we stand for

The values we operate by every day

Traceability

We know the farm, the co-operative, the harvest year and the processing method behind every lot we roast. If we cannot tell you, we do not stock it.

Freshness

Coffee is perishable. We roast to order and dispatch within 48 hours because coffee at its best is a narrow window — we want your guests inside it.

Consistency

Your espresso blend should taste the same in March as it did in September. We log every roast and cup every batch so the cup never drifts.

Partnership

We measure success by how well our partners' coffee programmes perform, not by how much coffee they buy. If your sales grow, ours follow.

Fair sourcing

We buy with documented chain of custody back to the cooperative or estate, and pay prices that keep good farms farming.

Craft over scale

We could roast faster and cup less. We choose not to. Growth never comes at the cost of the standard we set on day one.

(04) — Our journey

Eight years of deliberate growth

Every milestone below was earned, not funded. We grew by doing the work well enough that partners recommended us to other partners.

2018

Founded in Lviv's Sykhiv district

Vasyl Kovalenko and Marta Shevchenko sign the lease on a 180 m² warehouse unit and install a 12 kg Probat drum roaster. Six months of profile development before the first wholesale bag is delivered to a café on Rynok Square.

2019

First 20 wholesale partners; cupping programme launches

RoastWorksLviv.com reaches 20 active accounts across Lviv and begins hosting weekly public cupping sessions, building a reputation for transparency. The first Ethiopia Yirgacheffe natural lot sells out within two weeks.

2020

Remote training programme developed during lockdown

When café closures paused in-venue training, the team built a structured remote barista course. 47 baristas across Ukraine completed it during the lockdown — many becoming advocates when their venues reopened.

2021

Giesen W30 installed; dedicated cupping room opens

The Probat is retired. A 30 kg Giesen W30A triples production capacity. A separate cupping room — four tables, controlled lighting — enables Q-grader-level assessment in-house for the first time.

2022

Supply chain adapted; Kyiv & Ivano-Frankivsk routes added

The full-scale invasion forced a rapid logistics rethink. RoastWorksLviv.com secured a six-month green coffee buffer and established direct routes to Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk. Not one partner lost a single week of supply.

2023

SCA membership and ISO 22000 certification

Formal affiliation with the Specialty Coffee Association and completion of ISO 22000 food safety certification — validating processes long in place, now externally audited and documented.

2024

100 partners milestone; branded bag programme launched

The partner count crossed 100. The branded bag printing service — partners' own labels on RoastWorksLviv.com-roasted coffee — launched and was taken up by 18 venues in its first quarter.

2025–26

120+ partners, 24 origins, expanding southward

The network grows past 120 active venues and the origin menu to 24 countries. A second Giesen roaster enters planning to double capacity ahead of expansion into Odesa, Dnipro and beyond.

(05) — The team

The people behind every bag

Twelve specialists, one shared standard. When you work with RoastWorksLviv.com you get the whole team behind your account — from the roaster who profiled your blend to the account manager who knows your order schedule by heart.

Vasyl Kovalenko

Co-founder & Head Roaster

Q Grader certified. Fourteen years roasting across Lviv and Vienna. Responsible for all roast profile development and quality sign-off.

Marta Shevchenko

Co-founder & Green Coffee Buyer

SCA-certified Q Arabica Grader. Travels to origin twice a year — Ethiopia and Colombia — to build direct cooperative relationships and verify farm practices.

Oleh Petrenko

Head of Training & Education

Former national barista champion finalist. Built the three-tier training curriculum and has personally trained over 200 baristas across Ukraine since 2019.

Yulia Holovatenko

Wholesale Account Director

Oversees the wholesale partner programme and our top 30 accounts. Five years at RoastWorksLviv.com; previously in hospitality procurement for a Kyiv hotel group.

Andriy Bondarenko

Production Roaster & QC Lead

Runs the Giesen W30A five days a week and keeps the roast logs that hold our profiles steady. Cups every production batch before a bag is cleared for dispatch.

Kateryna Melnyk

Logistics & Partner Support

Coordinates roast-to-delivery scheduling, the Lviv fleet and Nova Poshta dispatch. The reason partners can set their order rhythm and trust it never slips.

Work with us

Twelve people. One quality standard.

Every person joins because they care about coffee quality, and stays because we invest in their development. When you work with RoastWorksLviv.com, you get the whole team behind your account — not just a delivery driver.

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