Poles are drinking more coffee – and better coffee – than ever, and this shift has fuelled the rise of Blue Orca Coffee, a roastery founded in 2017 by husband-and-wife team Beata Krajewska-Mróz and Jarosław Mróz. Private equity fund THC IV has acquired an 80% stake in the company and will support the digitally native brand in expanding into new sales channels.

Blue Orca Coffee’s portfolio comprises more than 150 SKUs – from single-origin coffees and proprietary blends to limited editions – sold primarily direct-to-consumer (D2C), through the largest marketplace platforms and via the company’s own online store. The founding duo has now been joined by a third partner: private equity fund THC IV, which has acquired an 80% stake in Blue Orca Coffee. Following the transaction, the founders not only remain shareholders but also continue to actively shape the business: Jarosław Mróz has been appointed CEO (President of the Management Board), while Beata Krajewska-Mróz has joined the company’s Supervisory Board. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.

The European coffee market is currently worth approximately EUR 45 billion and is growing at 5.7% per year, with the premium segment growing at around 8.7%. Growth is being driven by changes in everyday habits. Hybrid working has shifted part of coffee consumption from offices and cafés to the home, while the pandemic prompted Poles to buy home coffee machines en masse – according to GfK, as early as 2021 Poland was Europe’s third-largest coffee machine market by value, after Germany and France, and second only to Germany in the fully automatic machine segment. As coffee out of home becomes ever more expensive, consumers are seeking café-quality coffee at a fraction of the price – and freshly roasted whole-bean coffee brewed in a home machine delivers exactly that. This is the space in which Blue Orca Coffee operates today.

“We have built the brand first and foremost on customer satisfaction rather than advertising. On Allegro alone, we have already collected more than half a million positive ratings, and in e-commerce a customer review is advertising that money cannot buy. That is why, from day one, we have invested in consistent quality, fast shipping and customer service rather than in campaigns. At the same time, the market has changed dramatically: just a few years ago, whole-bean coffee was a niche for enthusiasts, whereas today it is one of the fastest-growing segments of the category. Consumers are far more discerning – they ask about origin, roast level and roast date – and they increasingly buy online and on a recurring basis rather than on impulse in-store,” says Beata Krajewska-Mróz, co-founder of Blue Orca Coffee.

According to the founders, this is only the beginning of changes that will reshape the Polish coffee market – not only on the consumer side, but also among producers themselves.

“Over the coming years, we expect three trends. The first is a continued shift towards quality: Poles will drink increasingly better coffee. The second is polarisation: low-cost mass-market brands and credible quality brands will strengthen their positions, while the middle of the market will shrink. From the outset, we have been building Blue Orca in the latter group – as a brand that offers good quality at an everyday price point. The third is consolidation: rising green coffee prices and new EU regulations, including on raw material traceability and packaging, will raise barriers to entry. Smaller roasters will find it increasingly difficult to operate without scale. We already have that scale, and together with our new partner we intend to play an active role in this process,” adds Jarosław Mróz, co-founder and CEO of Blue Orca Coffee.

Since its founding in 2017, Blue Orca Coffee has grown its revenue to nearly PLN 70 million in 2025, with revenue growing at a CAGR of approximately 35% over the last two years alone. Today, more than 90% of the company’s sales are generated through e-commerce channels, and its revenue is underpinned by a highly granular base of several hundred thousand transactions per year with individual customers, with no dependence on any single large contract or region.

This also provides the platform for the next phase of growth: the company plans to scale sales in channels where its presence has so far been limited – the HoReCa segment and partnerships with retail chains – leveraging the brand equity it has built in direct sales. The company’s production base supports the delivery of these plans. In 2024, Blue Orca Coffee relocated production to a new, automated facility in Bełżyce (Lublin Province). The company currently roasts approximately 1,000 tonnes of coffee per year there and has spare capacity that allows volumes to be scaled up without additional infrastructure capex.

“Blue Orca Coffee’s growth is, above all, the result of the founders’ determination – since 2017, Beata and Jarosław have transformed an artisanal roastery into one of Poland’s largest online sellers of whole-bean coffee. We are therefore all the more pleased to be growing the company together with them. It is rare to find a business that combines a strong position in the largest online sales channels with such significant, readily available production capacity headroom as Blue Orca Coffee. It is precisely this combination that gives us the scope to work alongside the founders to execute growth plans that, until now, have been constrained by a lack of time and resources – not demand,” comments Andrzej Różycki, Managing Partner at Tar Heel Capital, the advisor to the THC funds.

For THC, the investment in Blue Orca Coffee is also a bet on long-term shifts in consumer behaviour. Poles are making increasingly conscious choices about what they drink and are paying growing attention to health – as illustrated, for instance, by the nearly 12% decline in sales of alcoholic beer in H1 2026 (Statistics Poland, GUS), alongside rapid growth in non-alcoholic beer. The fund sees this as a further argument for the continued growth of the whole-bean coffee category.

“Today, coffee is more than just a daily ritual. Large, long-term studies – including the Nurses’ Health Study, which followed more than 47,000 women over 30 years – link regular consumption of one to three cups of coffee a day with a greater likelihood of healthy ageing. For consumers who are paying increasing attention to their health, that is good news,” adds Andrzej Różycki.

Blue Orca Coffee is the third investment made by THC IV – THC’s fourth fund, which closed in 2024 at EUR 120 million, the largest fund size in THC’s history. The fund continues the strategy of its predecessors, investing in companies in the manufacturing, B2B services and healthcare sectors and acquiring majority stakes. THC IV’s previous investments include Promar, a manufacturer of eco-friendly paper packaging, and Med-Gastr, a leading gastroenterology centre in central Poland.