2nd April:

4th March:

Jaguar, the extremely significant importer and distributor of spare parts to the coffee machine trade, has made a big gesture to encourage entries to the Beverage Standards Association’s annual accreditation scheme – this year, it may possibly subsidise a hundred entries from beverage operators who might not otherwise have been able to put themselves in for recognition. Furthermore, the Jaguar initiative may mean recognition for more pubs, hotels, and other kinds of caterer who have moved towards higher standards in hot beverages.

The theory of the BSA awards is to give cafes and caterers the chance to display a quality sign or ‘mark’ which confirms that the venue prepares and serves its drinks in what the trade considers the right manner, and to the proper standards. There are some individual prizes awarded to some cafes which are reckoned to have served the judges the best drinks in the country, but the overall benefit of the scheme is that the beverage industry can demonstrate an increasing number of venues working to high standards.

It is always a matter of debate as to whether entry fees are a factor in this – event organisers will argue that they need income to cover the costs of judging and administration, whereas for independent café owners, an entry fee is just one more expense that they can do without. And, has often been observed, what may be ‘a relatively small amount’ to a well-paid executive can be an awkward and unwelcome extra expense for a front-line café owner!

With this in mind, Jaguar has invited its distributor network to get involved. Every distributor who does a certain item of business with Jaguar in the near future will have the right to nominate a beverage operator as an entrant for the BSA awards. Jaguar will effectively subsidise that operator’s entry, and has committed to supporting up to a hundred entries – which, managing director James Russell has told us, appears to be a perfectly achievable figure.

8th February

We are quite delighted to have got to the bottom of a curious story which appeared in some sections of the catering trade press last week – it was reported in the general food-trade media that Lavazza was apparently in the middle of hell-for-leather dash for growth and had (we quote) ‘announced its ambitious plans to take on Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero and Starbucks… property agents have been appointed by Lavazza with the intention of opening up to 400 coffee shops across the UK, branded as Lavazza Espression. The London area will see up to 50 shops.’

To go from the current handful of Espression sites to fighting the big three was such an incredible plan, we felt we had to ask Lavazza about it – and were intrigued to find that that had said no such thing!

Now we have the true story – it turns out that the ambitious statement has come from the property agents retained by Catalyst Retail, the partner company which is opening the Espression sites.  Lavazza’s UK managing director, Luca Piccini, has pointed out to us that what the catering press omitted to say was that the Lavazza project is a ten-year plan.   “Four hundred stores is the potential we believe the Espression concept has in the UK in a decade,” he said, adding pointedly: “To transform what is potential on paper in actual openings is the real challenge.”

Fifty potential sites had already been identified when Lavazza UK announced a partnership with Catalyst Retail last October.  The flagship Lavazza Espression café was launched in Harrods in December 2010, along with a number of Espression cafés situated in UK and Irish airports. The first Espression café to launch under the Catalyst Retail model was opened in the Trafford Centre, Manchester on last November. This café is corporately owned by Catalyst Retail Limited. A number of Espression cafes are planned to open in 2013 in Derby, Newbury, Clapham, Leeds and Wembley, but these are still dependent on securing suitable sites.

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It is barista championship time again, and we have results from the first regional heat, held at Exeter over the last couple of days.  It might be felt that this heat went by the form book – the winner was none other than Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood  of  Colonna & Smalls in Bath, the reigning UK champ.  Hugo Hercod  of Relish in Wadebridge, himself a former UK champ,  won both the ‘best cappuccino’ and ‘best signature drink’ prizes, and Max’s colleague  Peter Grosvenor-Attridge took the ‘best espresso’ prize. Peter is the current holder of the UK Latte Art title.

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Fracino, the Birmingham manufacturer of espresso machines, has won the ‘Winner of Winners’ award and Outstanding Export award from EEF, the UK manufacturers’ association - around a quarter of the UK’s general manufacturing businesses are members. The export award marked a recent comment by the prime minister, approving of Fracino’s success in selling espresso machines to Italy.

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Yorkshire Tea has become a sponsor of the English cricket team. It has been reported that the brand will put a remarkable amount of its budget behind the deal – 20 per cent of its annual marketing budget.  Rather more surprising are the comments of one cricket correspondent, who has pointed out that the tea brand is also actually sponsoring that traditional part of the game, the tea interval – for which, he writes, ‘batsmen trying desperately to survive will be playing to reach the Yorkshire Tea Break, for which players will troop off at 3.40pm each day - it is the first time in the long and honourable history of sports sponsorship that the rights to a period when the game is not being played have been sold’.

24th January 2013

Yes, we're back again! 

It seems perfectly likely that the next Allegra Coffee Leaders’ Summit, which will be held in London at the end of March, may inspire some more hard talking on the subject of the ethical issues surrounding the sourcing of coffee.  The event features another panel discussion between the ethical and certifying organisations, and several speakers of known strong opinion from the coffee trade.

It is likely that speakers from the ethical organisations involved in coffee may be prepared to put up a better case for themselves this year, following the never-to-be-forgotten experience at a similar Allegra conference a few years ago. 

On that occasion, the ethical representatives on a panel had clearly expected simply to turn up and fly their respective flags, offer a few token remarks on their good work, and receive the praise of the industry – however, they came under unexpected and withering fire from the economist Dr Peter Griffiths, a long-standing opponent of Fairtrade who takes the view that properly-managed free trade produces a better outcome for the livelihood of coffee farmers. 

It was the Fairtrade Foundation who took the brunt of his criticism on that occasion, proving unable to answer any of the questions he put to them.  The representatives of the other ethical organisations who also re-appear on this year’s panel, the Rainforest Alliance and Coffee Kids, did not come in for any direct criticism.

Other items at the Allegra event will include a first trade speech by Kris Engskov, who is known in the UK as the top man here for Starbucks, and in the US as having been an aide to president Clinton. Observers might notice an interesting and perhaps unfortunate career coincidence – he joined Clinton just in time to be landed with handling the Lewinsky scandal, and he joined Starbucks here in time to be hit with the media accusations about Starbucks’ tax affairs!

27th November.  The ethical certifying bodies get a bit of a talking-to at the Costa Rica coffee conference - read it here on the Caffe Culture news Portal:

http://www.caffeculture.com/2012/11/26/market-save-planet/

20th November

5th November:

We are extremely pleased to confirm that Dan Fellowes of the UK came a very creditable 4th in the world Coffee in Good Spirits contest this weekend.  We came in behind Hungary, Greece and Belgium, although we regret that as yet we have no details of the winning drinks.

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We are also intrigued to note another distinction - Sean Fowler of Lincoln and York has become the youngest person in the UK to become a Q-grader, the certification which comes from the Coffee Quality Institute of the US.  In turn, Lincoln and York says it is the only UK roastery to have three Q-graders on its team.

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We have been highly entertained by the trade’s reaction to the recent action by Debenhams, which has decided to make its coffee menu more simple for customers – typically, the company’s café menus now replace the word ‘cappuccino’ with ‘frothy coffee’.  The move has been greeted with interest by the tabloids, but with derision by the coffee trade – our story is too long to reproduce here, but you can find it on the Caffe Culture news portal:

http://www.caffeculture.com/2012/11/05/debenhams-mistake-dumbing-down-coffee/

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Joe Fogel of Vaiopak, the designer and maker of customised cups and packaging for the takeaway trade, has won yet another award (he seems to be making rather a habit of it). He is now the Mid-Essex Businessman of the Year, having taken the Young Entrepreneur and Growing Business titles last year.  Vaiopak is now involved in a re-forestry project, and has recently re-planted six hectares of British native trees.

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Reiss Gunson of Londinium Espresso, the London roaster, has made slightly surprising move – he has introduced a range of lever-action espresso machines, designed for either the home market or the smaller commercial sector (there will be some larger commercial models to follow).  The interesting feature is that it is the world’s first spring lever espresso machine range designed especially for the home, and it is a British-made product… perhaps not surprisingly, that means it comes from the Fracino espresso machine factory in Birmingham.

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A curious new product made its appearance today (Monday) from the Cambridge Design Partnership, which modestly calls it a ‘revolution in the design of fresh coffee equipment’. The Esfresco system is a bean-to-cup storage hopper which minimises exposure to the degrading factors of oxygen, moisture, and light, promising to preserve beans in the hopper better than any previous method.