The Right Roast

View This Article in BOSS Magazine

Brothers Muldoon find the secret to the perfect cup of coffee

Imagine wandering to your company break room for a cup of coffee, and instead of quaffing a passable cup of blah, your first taste is a delectable sip of heaven. Mood recalibrated! Hope restored! In that moment of bliss, you raise your cup to Bonnie Scotland and the brothers Muldoon. …

If you’re one of thousands of lucky Canadians whose company break rooms serve Muldoon’s Hand Roasted Coffee, that joy is yours on a daily basis. Established in the Toronto area in 1991, Muldoon’s Coffee has been serving break rooms throughout the country, evolving to become an innovative craft roaster of specialty coffee.

Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, where their family operated a vending business, brothers Jimmy and Shaun Muldoon emigrated to Canada in the mid-1980s. “When we began, we had the exact same product as everyone else,” Shaun recently told BOSS. “We knew how the customer service worked because of our days in Britain and the fact that we’d always been in service, but we didn’t really understand the coffee. For the first years we focused on getting the coffee service right … and it took us about three years to realize that our coffee wasn’t very good.”

In 1998 they started roasting and creating their own specialty craft coffee. “There were no ‘hipster’ roasters in those days, so we had to do it ourselves,” he quipped. “Craft roasting great specialty coffee requires dedication to detail in every step. You must start with great quality green coffee beans with a trusted supply chain and quality control steps through the complete process.

“Once you have the coffee, you now have to understand the notable characteristics in order to create the proper roast profile to showcase its qualities. After roasting, the coffee is then ready to be packaged into a variety of formats that all have been created to optimize the freshness.”

Those formats include the environmentally friendly Muldoon’s Single, coffee pods that have reduced plastic cartridge use by over 40 million cups in just the last five years. As Shaun stressed, “The client preference has very much turned to specialty coffee that is convenient but must be in a ‘green’ format. The new client does not want a plastic cartridge of mass-produced coffee served in a foam cup.”  Muldoon’s offers the client a truly awesome experience of a craft roasted specialty coffee served in 100 percent biodegradable green cups.  Over the years they have been fortunate to work with great allied vendors such as E2E FoodPack Inc. who are constantly innovating products to improve their carbon footprint.

Not only is their packaging biodegradable, all production and plant waste are processed in a “Waste to Energy” program, and their plant is powered by Canada’s leading renewable energy provider, Bullfrog Power. Their main roaster by Loring produces zero emissions and operates with minimal energy.

“Our Muldoon’s Coffee has always roasted only specialty green coffees that are sold at a high premium that directly benefits the farmers and growing communities,” he pointed out. “A great example of this is our Colombian coffee, ‘Las Rosas.’ This coffee is awesome in both taste and social benefits,” Shaun said. Las Rosas, an association of women farmers in Colombia, is fulfilling their mission to bring prosperity and generational renewal to their families while encouraging equality in leadership. Muldoon’s also supports fair trade coffees; their Colombian singles recently made the finals of the annual Fair Trade awards.

Catching up to Maturing Palates

As the coffee-drinking public evolved, the Muldoons dedicated their time to learning their craft and meeting those changing expectations. “We are very unique as we spent our first seven years 100 percent focused on the office coffee service and brewing. We then added specialty micro roasting to supply the needs of our very valued and increasingly knowledgeable client. Muldoon’s Coffee offers best in class solutions that brew our specialty craft coffee delivered with our outstanding service — winning Consumer Choice Awards in 2018 and 2019. From our industry-leading Muldoon’s Single Serve to our state-of-the-art bean to cup and super automatic espresso systems, every taste and service requirement is satisfied,” Shaun said.

“Jimmy and I are extremely hands-on and share an office that is very much the central hub of operations,” he added. “Many years ago, I was the first Muldoon’s route service person and Jimmy was the sales force. We have never forgotten how difficult these jobs can be and really appreciate our team and all they do. We believe our main purpose today is to help and lead our team to wow our clients and distribution partners with service and products.”

If you’re stateside and longing for a taste of Muldoon’s, dinna fash — after 28 years of building a loyal following and providing “ridiculously fresh” coffee and service in Canada, they’re on their way.  “With this experience and our great systems, we are building an awesome network of allied distribution partners across North America. All aspects of our partner program are built on what we would want in a supplier. We truly enjoy building our partner program and the great operators we get to meet and work with. We very much look forward to growing our programs in all parts of the U.S.”   What would two Scottish brothers know about coffee? Quite a lot actually!