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Roast magazine has announced the finalists for its 23rd annual Roaster of the Year awards, with companies competing in Micro and Macro categories. The source lists four Micro finalists because of a first-round judging tie; winners in both categories are scheduled to be announced Oct. 19, 2026.
Roast magazine has named the finalists for its 2027 Roaster of the Year awards, the 23rd year of the competition, with winners in the Micro and Macro categories scheduled to be announced Oct. 19. The recognition assesses more than coffee quality, including sustainability, education, industry involvement, and commitments to diversity, inclusion and equity.
The Micro Roaster category includes companies that roast less than 100,000 pounds of coffee annually; Macro Roasters produce more than that threshold. Roast said the Micro category has four finalists because of a tie in the first round of judging. The finalists are listed alphabetically, and the company details in the announcement were drawn from each applicant’s award submission.
The listed Micro finalists are Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters of Sacramento, California; Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters of Michigan; Idle Hands Roasting Co. of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Indie Coffee Roasters of Carmel, Indiana. Their reported annual output ranges from 47,386 pounds at Indie Coffee Roasters to approximately 93,665 pounds at Chocolate Fish.
Roast said each category’s winner will be announced on Monday, Oct. 19, and featured in the magazine’s November/December 2026 issue. The announcement also directs prospective applicants to the criteria and application for the 2028 competition.
How the Awards Judge Roasters
The awards offer a view of how the specialty-coffee sector evaluates roasting businesses beyond the cup. Roast says its criteria include coffee quality and sustainability, as well as employee and community education, participation in the coffee industry, and commitments to diversity, inclusion and equity. Those standards place sourcing, workplace development and community relationships alongside production and product quality.
The finalists’ applications describe different approaches to those aims. Chocolate Fish reports composting and food-rescue partnerships; Dessert Oasis highlights electric-vehicle deliveries and staff development; and Idle Hands says it publishes sourcing and pricing information and issues an annual responsibility report. These are company-reported practices, rather than independent findings in the announcement. The award results may draw attention to those approaches, but the source does not state that selection amounts to a certification or audit of each claim.
For coffee buyers, wholesale partners and workers, the awards also provide a snapshot of businesses operating at different scales. All four Micro finalists fall below the category’s 100,000-pound annual roasting threshold, yet the company descriptions show varied retail footprints, training programs and producer relationships. The category structure gives readers a way to compare businesses within a defined production range, while the winner announcement will identify the judges’ selection in each division.
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Four Finalists in the Micro Category
Roast’s announcement describes Chocolate Fish as a roaster-retailer and wholesaler founded in 2008. The company reports annual production of approximately 93,665 pounds, six brick-and-mortar locations across Sacramento and the East Bay, two licensed locations, and wholesale supply to nearly 70 stores. It says it provides barista training, public classes and support for wholesale partners, and has donated more than 200,000 pounds of compostable materials since 2014 to help divert organic waste from landfills.
Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters, founded in 2009, reports roasting approximately 68,000 pounds a year and operating four Michigan retail locations. Its Ferndale headquarters houses its roastery, bakery, distribution operations, quality-control work and training center. According to its application summary, its practices include electric-vehicle deliveries, coffee-waste reuse and food-waste reduction, alongside structured training for employees, wholesale partners and the broader coffee community.
Salt Lake City’s Idle Hands Roasting Co. was established in 2021 and reports annual production of approximately 85,000 pounds. Its application describes published sourcing and pricing information, an annual responsibility report and producer-supported projects, including water access in El Salvador, coffee seedlings in Guatemala and milling equipment for a Colombian producer. Indie Coffee Roasters, founded in 2018 in Carmel, Indiana, reports producing 47,386 pounds annually across five locations. The supplied source material begins describing its “Love What You Drink” mission of making specialty coffee welcoming and accessible, but ends before providing the rest of its finalist profile.
The descriptions come from information submitted by the businesses for the awards, as presented by Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. They are not separate reporting on the companies’ operations. Roast says its recognition covers a wider set of criteria than those summarized in the announcement, and the available source material does not provide the judges’ individual assessments of the finalists.
“The award winner in each category will be announced on Monday, Oct. 19.”
— Roast magazine
Judging Details Still Awaited
The announcement does not name the judges, explain how individual criteria are weighted, or describe the scoring behind the finalists’ selections. It also does not identify the Macro category finalists in the supplied material, so their names and profiles cannot be reported here. The winner announcement is scheduled for Oct. 19, 2026, but the source does not specify a release time or say whether the results will appear first online or in another format.
Company details, including production volumes, sustainability programs and producer projects, are attributed to information in the award applications. The announcement does not independently verify those statements. The source excerpt also cuts off during Indie Coffee Roasters’ profile, leaving its full account of operations, sourcing, training and community work unavailable.
Winners Due October 19
Roast has scheduled the announcement of the Micro and Macro category winners for Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. The magazine says the winners will also be featured in its November/December 2026 issue. The next update is expected to establish which finalist is selected in each category and may provide further detail about the award decisions; no additional publication timetable or judging explanation is included in the announcement.
Roast has also opened access to the criteria and application for the 2028 competition, according to the announcement. The material provided does not give an application deadline or other dates for that cycle.
Key Questions
Who are the 2027 Roaster of the Year finalists named in the announcement?
The supplied announcement lists four Micro Roaster finalists: Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters, Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters, Idle Hands Roasting Co. and Indie Coffee Roasters. It does not provide the Macro finalists in the source material supplied here.
Why are there four Micro Roaster finalists?
Roast said a tie in the first round of judging resulted in four finalists. The source does not give further detail about the tie or the scoring process.
How does Roast define the Micro and Macro categories?
The Micro category is for companies roasting less than 100,000 pounds of coffee annually. The Macro category is for companies roasting more than 100,000 pounds a year.
When will the 2027 award winners be announced?
Roast says winners in both categories are scheduled to be announced on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. The winners are also set to appear in the magazine’s November/December 2026 issue.
What does the award consider besides coffee quality?
Roast says its criteria include sustainability, employee and community education, industry involvement, and commitments to diversity, inclusion and equity, among other factors. The announcement does not provide the criteria’s scoring weights.
Source: rss
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