16th January

Coffee house operators are going to be quite justified in expecting more from their suppliers in difficult trading times, has come the remark from Specialist Beverages of Northern Ireland. This is the company run by Hugh Gilmartin, who is also known as one of the Coffee Boys, the extremely entertaining consultancy to the café trade.  In announcing the recruitment of James Shepherd, who was formerly the region’s general manager for Matthew Algie, Hugh Gilmartin told Coffee House magazine that any supplier’s qualification for winning business from any coffee house now has to be founded on an imaginative attitude to business support, not simply a good price per kilo of coffee. The continuing recession has made everybody consider their strategic positions for the future, said Hugh Gilmartin. When there is always another 200 salesmen queuing up to offer a price on coffee, the coffee house owner can now make their decision based on the supplier that is going to give them most help.

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There has been a bizarre turn in one of the longest-running battles between a café chain and a local council – Bristol City Council has issued enforcement notices for two franchised Costa premises in the city, and is investigating complaints about a third Costa site in nearby Westbury-on-Trym.  The authority refused permission for one branch in September, but a planning committee meeting has now been told that the site cannot be ordered to stop trading, despite having been found to be against local planning regulations, because it is ‘not doing enough harm’.   Another hearing will be held in February, but councillors have heard that until then, the council can do nothing, because serving notice to stop trading would leave the council open to a claim for compensation. One councillor said: ‘the public will simply think we have no teeth’.

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The bakery chain Greggs has confirmed that it proposes to move further towards the coffee-house business after its first Greggs Moment coffee shop in Newcastle did well during the festive season. There will be two or three more test outlets before plans for a national chain are decided. The chief executive has pointed out that although Greggs is already a chain of over 700 sites, less than a tenth of them have any seating, which makes the new concept a considerable change in tactics.

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Following the launch of Peter Andre’s coffee shop, the latest move by a television personality to open a coffee hosue comes from Mick Norcross, who has been in The Only Way Is Essex and Big Brother.  He proposes to open coffee shops in Brentwood to help promote his existing Sugar Hut nightclub business. Two other cast members have already opened salons and boutiques in Brentwood.

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There is yet another move by a pub company towards the coffee business – the Spirit Pub Company, which has about 800 managed pubs and around 500 leased sites, has decided to promote Costa branded coffee across its Chef & Brewer, Fayre & Square and Flaming Grill brands. Costa, it is said, is now looking at more avenues for brand diversity, including further openings at universities after what is reportedly a successful trial.

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Entries are still being invited for the coffee section of the Young British Foodies awards. The organisers have told us that with the awards only six weeks away, they will welcome late entries. The awards seek to ‘embrace the new culinary personalities breaking boundaries in the food and drink world’.  There are sections for chefs, mixologists and the like, but there is also the curiously-titled Coffee King or Queen section, which will be judged by Gwilym Davies, Tim Styles and Marco Arrigo.  There is no entry fee - the entrant simply needs to write a 150-word summary  of their skill, their product or their business idea. Further details from http://the-ybfs.com

10th January:  Coffee Kids, the main trade charity in support of farming families, has closed its UK office. The trustees have created a new charity. See our latest issue.

9th December

With impressively good timing, Alex Evans’ guide to independent coffee shops in London has arrived just as the gift shopping season gets under way. This is a truly pocket-sized small book at 6in x 4in, yet cramming in 150 pages of café guides and good feature stories on such aspects as roasting, brewing methods, and ethical sourcing. The list of acknowledgements shows that some remarkably influential names in the coffee field were involved, and it has to be said that the photography, by Vic Frankowski of Tapped and Packed, is extremely imaginative – atmospheric, and mercifully light on the usual old shots of dripping espresso!  The book does not attempt to cover every decent coffee venue in the capital, with about three dozen being reviewed, but it is well written, and in meaningful terms… we once fell out with a very big beverage trade organisation for criticising their annual café guide as being too full of clichés and worn-out phrases, but in this, we found the over-used term ‘mouth-watering’ only once.  For a tenner, this is a very good buy.  Full review in our next printed issue, and probably on our online newsfeed shortly.

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An extremely unusual initiative has come up from one of the sponsors of the UK barista championships – Arla, who support the contest under their Cravendale brand, are reported to be supporting two baristas in an intensive training programme before the contest starts. The candidates were found through Arla’s Milk Partnership, and come from AFMP, a group of farmers who supply milk to Cravendale.  One is a farmer’s daughter from Garstang, who works at the Old Holly Farm café in Forton; we don’t know who the other is.  The initiative is curious in that, on the one hand, it could be argued that no entrant should be so closely linked with a sponsor company  -  but on the other, it could be said that such active outreach work, going beyond the obvious barista community, is exactly what one always hopes for from the contest’s backers.

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