About San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay Coffee was founded in 1979 when Jon and Barbara Rogers used savings set aside for their children's college education to buy a small, nearly bankrupt coffee and tea business. Starting from roughly 100,000 pounds of coffee roasted a year, the company built direct relationships with farmers across Central and South America and Africa and grew into one of the largest specialty coffee roasters in the United States, today roasting close to 40 million pounds annually. Jon and Barbara retired from daily operations in 2017, and their children continue to run the company, which operates as Rogers Family Company and remains family-owned.
In 2019 the company marked its 40th anniversary with a full rebrand of its logo, packaging, and website, alongside a stated recommitment to sustainable sourcing and waste reduction. That shows up concretely in its OneCUP single-serve pods: instead of the petrochemical plastic used in a standard K-Cup, they're made from cellulose and plant-based materials -- cornstarch, sugarcane, and cassava -- and are BPI-certified as commercially compostable, breaking down in roughly 90 days under industrial composting conditions. It's the kind of engineering detail that backs up a sustainability claim rather than just stating one.
Brand website: sfbaycoffee.com
What San Francisco Bay makes
San Francisco Bay's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Fog Chaser Whole Bean Coffee
medium-dark blend, 2 lb bags -- featured on Brew Gazette — featured on Brew Gazette
French Roast & dark roast whole bean coffee
bold, full-bodied dark roast blends
OneCUP single-serve pods
K-Cup-compatible, BPI-certified commercially compostable pods
Organic Coffee Co line
certified organic whole bean and ground coffee
Cold brew whole bean blends
coarser-grind blends roasted for cold brewing
Why we recognized San Francisco Bay
The Brew Gazette Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. San Francisco Bay earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, brewed with daily, and judged on what lands in the cup.
San Francisco Bay products we rated highly
San Francisco Bay Coffee Fog Chaser
The medium-dark roast splits the difference for a household with mixed tastes, cupping with caramel, toasted nut, and a rounded cocoa finish and low acidity in our tasting. The two-pound bag brings the per-ounce cost down noticeably next to smaller bags, which matters for a kitchen grinding fresh every morning, and it comes from a family-owned Bay Area roaster with a decades-long track record and a large base of reviewers on the bag we tested.
Read the 10 Best Coffee Beans of 2026 guide →What earned San Francisco Bay the recognition
- In our tasting, the Fog Chaser blend delivered a smooth, low-acid, chocolatey cup with caramel and toasted-nut notes, backed by a large volume of Amazon customer reviews for a roaster its size.
- Family-owned since 1979, when Jon and Barbara Rogers bought a small coffee and tea business, San Francisco Bay Coffee has grown into one of the largest specialty coffee roasters in the United States while remaining under family ownership today.
- The company's OneCUP single-serve pods are made from cellulose and plant-based materials like cornstarch, sugarcane, and cassava rather than petrochemical plastic, and are BPI-certified as commercially compostable -- a concrete sustainability commitment rather than just marketing language.
- A 2019 rebrand marking the company's 40th year in business reflected a renewed commitment to sustainable sourcing and direct farmer relationships across Central and South America and Africa.