El Criollo

What El Criollo does

Cafés El Criollo is a privately held Spanish coffee company headquartered in Zaragoza and founded in 1910. The firm specialises in the selection, roasting, and marketing of high-quality coffee, serving customers in the hospitality and food service industries (HoReCa). Its core activity is sourcing green coffee, applying roasting expertise to produce blends suited to professional foodservice clients, and distributing those products to hotels, restaurants, cafés, and related operators in Spain.

The business model is a traditional B2B wholesale and roasting operation: El Criollo monetises through the sale of roasted coffee to hospitality and food industry buyers, with pricing, contract structures, and customer segments not publicly disclosed in the available data. The firm employs between 11 and 50 people, placing it in the small-to-mid-sized specialty roaster category, with no public information on roasting capacity, distribution footprint, brand portfolio, certifications, or digital/technology infrastructure. The company's own website was inaccessible at the time of capture (displaying only a verification/loading screen), and as a result many standard firmographic, technology, product, partnership, and management details are unavailable. No funding rounds, M&A activity, leadership changes, product launches, or geographic expansion events have been documented in the input data, leaving the company's recent strategic posture and growth trajectory difficult to assess from external evidence alone.

Name

El Criollo

Website

https://cafeselcriollo.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1910

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cafés El Criollo is a privately held Spanish coffee roaster founded in 1910 and headquartered in Zaragoza. It selects, roasts, and supplies high-quality coffee to the hospitality and food service industries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Specialty Coffee Roasting

NAICS

Coffee and Tea Manufacturing (31192)

SIC

Beverages (2080)

akta.pro primary industry

Green Coffee Processing (Hulling, Grading, Decaffeination) (AFAFADAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Instant Coffee & Coffee Extract Manufacturing (AFAFADAD)

Keywords

• Specialty coffee roasting
• Coffee wholesale
• Hospitality coffee supply
• Foodservice coffee beans
• Gourmet roasted coffee

Headquarters

HQ city

Zaragoza

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Supply Chain, Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales

Core offering

El Criollo (Cafés El Criollo) selects, roasts, and markets high-quality coffee products targeted at the hospitality and food industries. The company transforms sourced green coffee into finished roasted coffee and supplies it to foodservice operators as its core commercial activity.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Roasted specialty coffee

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves1 record

Direct peers

• Cafés Baqué: Spanish specialty coffee roaster serving hospitality and foodservice accounts with a heritage brand. Highly comparable to El Criollo in geography (Iberia), B2B hospitality focus, and roaster-only model.
• Cafés Valiente: Spanish coffee roaster supplying foodservice and retail, with comparable operating model and Iberian geography to El Criollo.
• Cafés La Brasileña: Historic Spanish coffee roaster focused on selection, roasting, and distribution to the Spanish hospitality market. Closely comparable heritage B2B roasting profile.
• Cafés Granell: Long-established Spanish coffee roaster (Valencia) supplying coffee to hospitality and retail channels. Directly comparable in business model, scale, and target customer segment to El Criollo.

Broad incumbents

• JDE Peet's Professional: Professional channel of JDE Peet's (Jacobs Douwe Egberts) supplying coffee to foodservice and hospitality across Europe, including Spain. Direct competitor for hospitality accounts at much larger scale.
• UCC Coffee Spain: Japanese-origin global coffee roaster with a European professional channel serving hotels, restaurants, and cafes. Comparable B2B hospitality roasting model, though from a multinational platform.
• Nestlé Professional: Out-of-home division of Nestlé covering coffee, beverages, and foodservice solutions. Competes for the same hospitality coffee accounts in Spain, though from a broader portfolio and global scale.
• Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group: Global coffee platform (parent of Segafredo among others) with broad foodservice and retail coffee reach in Europe. Competes with El Criollo for hospitality accounts but operates at portfolio scale.
• Lavazza: Global Italian coffee roaster with strong foodservice and hospitality presence across Europe. Comparable end-market and product category but operates at much greater scale and brand recognition.
• Segafredo Zanetti: Italian-origin global coffee roaster with a dedicated professional/hospitality channel (Segafredo Zanetti Professional). Comparable as a B2B hospitality roaster but at materially larger scale.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks4 records

Key highlights4 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/cafeselcriollo

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about El Criollo