About Lacas
Located in beautiful Pennsauken, New Jersey, Lacas Coffee is one of the nation's longest running independent coffee roasters. Since 1921 we have been selecting and importing only the highest quality new crop Arabica beans from family owned farms throughout the world’s coffee growing regions.
Our Original Blends, Specialty, Organic, and Fair Trade coffees are custom roasted at our solar-powered facility and delivered fresh to demanding distributors, restaurants, hotels, specialty coffee shops and retailers.
Our History
Two immigrant brothers, Constantine and George Lacas, arrived in the United States in 1919. With the training and guidance of family members in New York City, the brothers decided to venture into the coffee business in Philadelphia. In 1921 they started a small coffee distribution business in a basement store at 10th and Arch Streets. The brothers blended, ground and packed all the coffees by hand, and they sold and delivered coffee door-to-door using public transportation.
After World War II, the second generation of Lacas family entered the business.
With brothers Constantine (Gus) and Phokion, and later cousin Phokion C. Lacas, the business continued to grow. When the company was faced with finding a larger facility, 1008-1016 Wood Street in Philadelphia became Lacas Coffee’s home for more than 50 years. The second generation had the vision that this building would fulfill their dreams of a place for a coffee roaster, automated scales and new, state-of-the-art packaging equipment. In time, each piece of the dream was placed into production.
One great asset the Lacas family earned through their years in business was customer loyalty with business respect. The family and company were known not only for a high quality coffee product, they were also business gentlemen who respected and treated each customer with honest and sincere business ethics. So in the early 1990s the third generation acquired the business to carry on this legacy.
In December 1997, Lacas Coffee faced one of its greatest challenges. A devastating fire took down the facility on Wood Street. After the fire, a customer delivery was never missed nor did the company lose one customer during the rebuilding of a new facility in Pennsauken, NJ. This space afforded the company room for major expansion in both production and coffee education training facilities.
In May 2019, a solar panel grid was installed at the Lacas Coffee roasting facility. The grid produces approximately 388,800-kilowatt hours of electricity each year - enough energy to meet nearly 100% of Lacas Coffee’s energy needs. This step forward is in line with Lacas Coffee’s movement towards being a more sustainable company.
Today, Lacas Coffee has moved from importing, roasting and distributing two premium coffees for food service to providing a palette of more than 30, not only for food service but private label and specialty coffee users as well. Lacas Coffee will continue to be a leader in developing exceptional quality coffees, offer a range of innovative coffee and beverage products and provide superior coffee education with delivery and service to our customers.
In 2021, a year into the COVID-19, pandemic, Lacas shined through to celebrate our 100 Year Centennial. To help mark the occasion, the company introduced a limited-edition Centennial Commemorative Coffee Tin. Each tin was filled with a 12-ounce bag of “Centennial Blend”, a celebratory name for the company’s flagship Original City Roast blend o Arabica coffees – sourced, blended, roasted, and sold by the company since its inception in 1921.
Seeking to give back to the community that has supported its business for 100 years, Lacas Coffee Company donated a portion of the proceeds from tin sales to Philabundance, a nonprofit organization fighting hunger across Greater Philadelphia. Through a network of 350 partner agencies, Philabundance distributed over 50 million pounds of food to those in need from October 2019 through September 2020. In 2021, after the pandemic hit the Greater Philadelphia region, food insecurity has increased by up to 60%, with 40% of those seeking assistance doing so for the first time. We supported our greater community in addressing this need.
We’d like to thank our fans and community for continued support over 100 years. We look forward to serving you through the next 100!
