Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Francisco Marrone. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Francisco thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Veg’ Origins’ history goes back almost 20 years, when I came to this wonderful country in search of new beginnings and a better future. Life, unexpectedly, introduced me to the coffee world and since then, I have been involved in the coffee business, learning about the wonderful process of growing, roasting, and packaging coffee beans from all around the world.
2020 gave my life a 180 degree turn -for the better- and led me to see the bright side of it. It was then, that I chose to take advantage of the opportunities that life itself presented to me, by showing new possibilities and opening new doors, always focused on my love for coffee beans and the planet.
So, I decided to start my own company from scratch, offering organically grown and sustainable sourced specialty coffee blends.
Our products are not only excellent quality, but will always bring our customers peace of mind, knowing that they are being kind to Mama Earth through their purchases.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been working with franchises and private companies along Central Florida, for about 20 years, designing their coffee blend recipes. These are unique and identify with their company concept. We at Veg’ Origins, focus on making quality products, sustainability, reducing our footprints, and doing as much as we can to preserve the environment and take care of our planet. We do this while trying to provide our customers with the most delightful experience through our coffee beans.
We want them to receive a memorable one of a kind experience while enjoying our blends and leaving them smiling right after the first sip, because they know that their purchase has made a positive impact on the world and also, because they are now doing their part in healing the planet.
We source coffee directly from sustainable farms that produce high quality coffee, with minimum negative impacts, to protect the environment and the wildlife.
Our coffee bags are plant based and 100% home compostable, because our priority is trying to reduce the amount of waste our company could generate during the coffee process as much as possible.
We will never stop taking steps in order to lighten the footprints we are leaving on the environment, because we think that sustainability is a journey, and we want to give back to the Earth more than we are taking from her.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

When I lost the job I had for almost 17 years, back in 2020 during the pandemic, I decided to launch my own coffee brand, from scratch. It took me almost two years to put everything together and get my company in the market, because it was very difficult to find a provider that offered sustainable options and covered my expectations of what I had in mind to create my brand’s identity. I made contact with several coffee farmers to source the best specialty coffee greens from and I had to roast tons of samples and made a lot of coffee cuppings to get the unique recipe I was looking for, for each one of my three original blends. After that long process, I finally launched Veg’ Origins and at the beginning, I started renting a coffee roaster per hour, to roast the green beans by myself., but I was not 100% satisfied with the quality of the roasting. So, I had to contact another coffee roastery which had the best equipments, to roast my coffee blends according to my recipes. I started packaging and processing my orders from home, until I moved to the facility where Veg’ Origins is located today.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I don’t believe in casualties, instead I strongly believe in causalities. Everything happens for a reason and at the perfect timing. I met the last coffee roaster I hired, before I started running my own business, almost a decade ago. He contacted me while I was working with another company, because he wanted to get into the coffee business and needed my advice to start building his coffee roastery. He also asked me to start working together, but at that time I was in charge of the coffee logistics of that franchise. So, the best I could do was help him with my knowledge and experience, to get the education and certifications he needed to get involved with the coffee culture and start running his new business. I also recommended what manufacturers to contact, in order to make the best selection of equipments for his coffee roastery. Years passed by, and we kept in touch occasionally, until I contacted him to ask him to roast my green coffee, because quality is my priority and I knew that he had one of the best coffee roaster machines in the market. A month later, he proposed the idea of becoming partners to me, because he had different plans in mind, and wanted to just retire and live his life traveling and doing what he loves the most. So, I agreed to run the company and process his orders, along with my brand, for a year. In 2023 we started the transition of the business and my friend became one of my customers and I became the owner of the coffee roastery and cold brew lab facility.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vegoriginscoffee.square.site/
• Instagram: @vegorigins_coffee
• Facebook: Veg’ Origins Coffee
• Yelp: Veg’ Origins

Image Credits
Dylan Moo.