5th January:

The barista championships are off and running – and we can bring you the very first results, from the heat in Belfast yesterday.   In first place was Neli Petkova of Café Krem, who after her competition appearances in recent years is now widely recognised as a competitor of great quality and talent. Second was Heather Jamison of Quail’s restaurant in Bambridge, County Down, and third was Julia McKenna of Clements (again, a company with a distinguished history in competition).  We are told, courtesy of Helen Ostle from Beyond the Bean, that the event was of the high standard we have come to expect from the Northern Ireland heat, and that even those competitors who suffered the odd dropped cup and other disaster all coped impressively.  (The donation-pot which sat beside the spare espresso machine for those who wanted to make themselves a drink, raised £70 for Coffee Kids).

Other news from the contest is that the Scottish heat has experienced a sudden late burst of entries, and the northern regional event is also very busy – but potential competitors from these areas are still welcome to enter, because the organisers are busy re-shuffling to make places available.

For all entrants, there is an offer from Simon Martin of Quickfire tableware – a special deal on customised cups and saucers for use in the contest. The offer is that the artwork set-up charge will be waived for UKBC entrants.

We are slightly disappointed to hear that Costa, whose MD told us that he wanted to enter his champion, is not now doing so. The company has not answered questions on the subject, but a ‘usually-reliable source’ tells us that Costa may have a plan for entering in force next year, with a view to making their mark on the contest.  However, we see that Marks and Spencer has indeed put its champion in, and there is another major venue which we have never before seen represented… this year, there is a barista entry from the House of Commons!

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Those in the trade who are against the concept of instant or soluble coffee now have a new argument to use – researchers from Durham University have concluded that people who drink seven cups of instant a day, not an unreasonable amount, are three times as likely to experience hallucinations as the rest of the population.

The findings came from a study conducted among 219 students, who might be expected to be a reasonable sample for the use of both coffee and hallucinogenics. Some participants who were served with a great deal of instant coffee reported hearing disembodied voices – other participants reported seeing things that weren’t there, and some even reported making contact with the dead.

Now, there’s an advertising angle that hasn’t been tried before…

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The general news media has, fortunately, missed the main point of this week’s news from Keep Britain Tidy, which has been working to establish the sources of the vast amount of fast-food packaging which litters our streets.  The media were very quick indeed to seize upon the finding that McDonalds is responsible for about one-third of all the branded rubbish that ends up in our gutters and public places – but what the media missed is the contribution, if that is the right word, made by the beverage industry.

The takeaway coffee trade got off very light in the media reports, largely because the figure of identifiable branded rubbish which could be directly traced to the beverage industry was tiny – of 1,698 branded pieces of rubbish analysed, only 29 were Starbucks mugs, 14 were Costa, and Coffee Republic were very low at four and Caffe Nero accounted for one single item.   As a result, media attention did not focus on our sector, which appeared to account for less than three per cent of the problem, but concentrated on McDonalds and the quite astonishing figure recorded by Greggs, whose total was bigger than Burger King, KFC, Subway and Pret a Manger all put together.

However, low down in the figures was a further item – 86 pieces of rubbish were recorded as ‘unbranded coffee mugs’.  If this is added to the figures from the big coffee chains, then the takeaway beverage sector as a whole suddenly becomes the fourth-biggest generic problem.

It also turns out that Keep Britain Tidy did not actually analyse the type of branded rubbish, but merely recorded the brand name – and it is very likely indeed that of the thousand items which bore the brands of the top six fast-food chains, a certain percentage must almost certainly be made up of beverage mugs.

When Coffee House magazine put this to Keep Britain Tidy, and asked whether the organisation had identified beverages as a problem area, and had any specific plans about it, a spokesman seemed quite surprised by the question.

“The nature of litter changes down the years as the world changes,” acknowledged the spokesman. “Just as the increasing popularity of burgers and kebabs previously presented us with new challenges, so too does the emergence of takeaway coffee. In London, ‘unbranded coffee’ was the top category of litter recorded.”

Asked whether Keep Britain Tidy expected the beverage industry to take any responsibility for the waste, the spokesman replied:

“Our strategy remains the same – both to change the behaviour of customers who drop litter and persuade the outlets to support our efforts. We support calls for increased bin provision, both at stores and away from them, and we hope that as a result of our survey, fast food outlets will accept more responsibility for fast food litter and work with us in combating the problem.

“We are urging the companies to encourage “eating-out” customers to use a bin once they’ve finished their meal, to increase signage in restaurants with anti-litter messages, to offer money-off vouchers or incentives to customers who return packaging, and to put more bins at strategic points - not just directly outside their premises.”

The giant fast-food chains, when questioned by the major news media, all made the expected vanilla comments about litter being a ‘challenge’, except that McDonalds did say it expected all restaurant managers to arrange three litter patrols of the surrounding streets each day. The most bizarre reported comment was supposedly from Manchester Business School and Metropolitan University, which one paper quoted as judging that ‘seeing a company’s brand in the gutter is bad for its image’  (nothing gets past these higher-education types, does it?).

From the beverage industry, most of the big brands and even the Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group did not respond to invitations to comment – the only one which did was the Caffe Nero chain, which was reported to have accounted for one item of litter in the whole survey.

“Just goes to show that Caffe Nero attracts a better class of customer,” commented director Paul Ettinger.

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A fire bomb was hurled through the front door of a Starbucks café in Whitechapel, London, this week.  When the attack happened, at 1am, the manager of the branch was still on the premises – he saw intruders apparently preparing to smash their way in on his CCTV system, decided to stay hidden, but was forced to retreat through a fire escape when the firebomb went off.    Twenty firefighters attended the incident, and although the fire damaged the carpet, tables and several glass panels, the emergency services stopped the blaze spreading throughout the building.

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Interesting figures crop up in the report from Bewley’s of Dublin, which has now converted its entire electricity requirement to renewable power by awarding an initial one-year €250,000 contract to an independent electricity firm, Energia.  Bewley’s annual electricity requirement, we learn, is the equivalent of supplying over 300 homes.   The company’s MD, Jim Corbett, says that working to switch to renewable energy sources forms part of Bewley’s overall commitment to environmental sustainability, by which the company has become Ireland’s first fully certified carbon-neutral coffee company. The Republic of Ireland has, of course, become a leader in this work, with Java Republic recently claiming the title of ‘first carbon-neutral coffee roastery on the planet’.

6th January 2009

In the beverage-trade equivalent of the January transfer window, we have more news of personnel changes, most notably this time of two moves by senior managers who have recently been working with chocolate drinks.   Martyn Herriott has left his position as national account manager for Barry Callebaut, and from February will be handling some consultancy through Alistair Price at What Price, while setting up what we think will be a beverage trade distribution business of his own. 

At the same time, the French chocolate company Monbana has closed its UK operation,  and shifted its distribution over to Eurofoodbrands.   The leader of the British operation, Paul Nolan, who has done a notable job in bringing the brand to wide trade attention in the past three years, can be contacted at 07879-428992.

(Still on chocolate, we are intrigued to learn that Illy, no less, has been involved in a heavy planting project involving the Criollo bean, which is comparatively rare and accounts for only five per cent of cacao grown.  We are told that the first products are due in Britain next month, and we’re rather hoping to sample the result).

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The Langside College in Glasgow is inviting tenders for its beverage services, including operation of a coffee bar and vending. The contact is C.M.Thompson, Langside College, 50 Prospecthill Road, Glasgow G42 9LB. Tel. 0141 272 3600.

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Again in Scotland, the well-placed Has Bean coffee bar in the Royal Mile is going up for sale.  The editor knows this place for serving the best almond latte he’s ever had; it has also won two regional Bev-e awards. The owner, Graham Kenny, is a chef who wants to concentrate more on the beverage side of trading than the food side. The café-bar has 30 covers, and is located right in the tourist-trap part of the cobbled hill which goes from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood and the Scottish parliament.   It’s a council lease, but the curiosity is that because of some SNP rule, it pays no business rates.  Details: graham.kenny@blueyonder.co.uk

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The first local press report following the rescue of Whittard is from York, where it is suggested that one of the brand’s two local shops is to close.  The local paper says that the information came from the shop staff, but that the new owners have refused to comment. 

Whittard of Chelsea was bought from the administrators by Epic, a company which has been described as a turnround specialist, and which also owns the gift chain Past Times.  At the time of the purchase, a couple of days before Christmas, Epic did say that ‘all stores are remaining open’.

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   2008 News

23rd december 2008

10th December 2008

There has been a spectacular development with Shelter from the Storm, the project for the homeless launched by Louie Salvoni of Espresso Service.    One of the aims of the cause has been to find a building in London to serve as an everyday shelter and canteen – and today, a charitable property developer has made available an entire four-storey house, for at least the next year or so.    We aren’t allowed to say where it is, except vaguely ‘around Islington’, but we can report that Louie is now certainly going to be looking for physical and manual help from trade supporters in clearing the place out after months of disuse… not least because the top floor has been occupied by urban foxes!    Volunteer help is welcomed – contact  louie@espressoservice.co.uk

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The Forestry Commission is looking for someone with catering experience to run a new café opening at Haldon Forest Park, near Exeter. The renovation of the café is already under way and it will be ready for occupation by the end of March, and an experienced café franchisee is being sought.  The park attracts 200,000 visitors a year.   Details from Jon Stone at Stonesmith on 01392 201262.

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The café trade did not distinguish itself in this year’s Loo of the Year awards, the remarkably effective and attention-getting annual contest which highlights the public demand for high-quality out-of-home facilities.  Although the contest is a known business-builder, the 1,700 entries included barely half a dozen cafes – and, we believe, none of the big coffee-house names entered at all.   However, three five-star awards were made to cafes - Harrisons Bistro in Newcastle Emlyn took the Welsh area prize, the Malt Barn coffee shop at the Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown won the Scottish region, and the English winner was the Café Metro in Bury.

A sign of the importance attached to the awards by serious big brands is that the JD Wetherspoon pub chain took 110 awards for individual sites, and took the top pub prize in every region of the UK.  McDonalds dominated the fast-food section with eighteen five-star winners, and Welcome Break had 30 of its motorway sites awarded five-star status.  It is known that such brands make immense marketing use of their awards.

Mike Bone, managing director of the awards team, has told us that he will be making a special effort to highlight the café and coffee-house trades in next year’s awards, the 22^nd series.  He pointed out to us a recent survey by Help the Aged, which showed that a vast number of older people do not go to out-of-home catering venues simply because they are concerned about the state of the toilets.  (In view of the low entry figure from our sector, we avoided reminding him that the café part of the awards had been added as a result of this magazine’s lobbying!)

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One of the UK’s most notable independent coffee shops and roasters has secured an equally notable contract win – Artisan of Edinburgh has been given the contract to supply Beanscene, the coffee-house chain recently taken over by the very stylish Scots retail group Fifi and Ally. To the absolute delight of the Edinburgh local press, the sheer size of the contract suggests that Artisan may have to buy its first delivery van – the company usually roasts 30 kilos at a time, and delivers by bike, but the Beanscene deal is going to require 300 kilos a week. Artisan is run by Gustavo Pardo,  a Chilean, and New Zealander Michael Wilson, and their café is at the heart of one of Edinburgh’s recently-developed ‘cool’ shopping areas, in Broughton Street.   Their bean suppliers are Mercanta and Inter-American.

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Douwe Egberts has announced that it will increase purchases of sustainable green coffee beans by more than 30 per cent to 26,500 tonnes in 2009.   The brand has chosen to partner with Utz Certified, formerly known as Utz Kapeh, which claims to be the largest coffee certifier in the world.     Paul Freeman, the marketing manager for Sara Lee Coffee & Tea Out-of-Home, told us that he is not concerned to have partnered with the certifying body that probably has the lowest public profile: “Of course it has often been the case that people have confused sustainably-sourced coffee with Fairtrade, believing that FT is the one and only solution. However, we have already seen some fairly major retailers take the decision to choose Utz Certified coffee -  IKEA, Debenhams, and McDonalds (except in UK) and there are more set to make the move.”

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CBS television news in America has had the chance to interview Howard Schulz, top man at Starbucks, this week – and admirably, the American reporters did not shirk from asking him a few awkward questions.   Among the responses they drew was an admission that Starbucks had had no plan in place to cope with any downturn in business or financial crisis, and Mr Schulz went as far as to say that Starbucks had considered itself recession-proof.   One delightful question was: "Why do you have to have names like grande and venti? Why can't you say small, medium and large like normal people?"    Sadly, Howard Schulz did not have any answer to that, except to rather over-complicate the topic by saying:  “people tell me there are over 70,000 different ways that our customers can order a Starbucks coffee."

Meanwhile, in the UK, one local council has now taken the bold step of ordering Starbucks to stop operating as a cafe.  Brighton and Hove City Council said the café in the town’s St James Street opened in May without permission to trade as a cafe or restaurant, and the council has now served an enforcement notice to take effect from 9 January - Starbucks will be allowed to sell takeaway coffee and sandwiches, but they cannot be consumed inside. All seats and tables must be removed.   Councillor Lynda Hyde, chairman of the council's planning committee, said: "We are responding to local concerns and making it clear we will not tolerate planning regulations being flouted in this way.”

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Entries are now open for the 2009 UK Barista Championships; Paul Meikle-Janney of Coffee Community is handling the entries, and tells us:  “The high street is going to be a tough battleground over the next few months and true quality is going to be a powerful weapon - I strongly believe that competitions can be a great way of driving skills and quality for brands and independents alike.”  Entry details from paul@coffee-community.co.uk

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that the reigning world champion, Irishman Stephen Morrissey, has indeed decided to part company with Square Mile coffee roasters, in which he has been working with the 2007 world champ, James Hoffmann.

Some interesting and useful opportunities are getting the 2009 UK Barista Championship under way. San Remo, the machine sponsors of the event, have quite reasonably decided to use the contest warm-up period to promote their machines (we noted that someone on one of the coffee forums last month was enquiring ‘does anyone know anything about them?’)  The company itself is putting on an open day where the machines can be tried - this is at Buckfastleigh in Devon (on the A38 Plymouth-Exeter road)  on Monday Dec 8^th, 11am-3pm.  No charge.

Joe O’Hara of Ristretto in London, notable for a rock star’s comment that his espresso bar at the Glastonbury festival was ‘a shining beacon of civilisation in a sea of mud’, is putting on another event to try out the machines. This is in London the following day, Tuesday 9th, going on into the late evening. will be talks by Ed Buston, Phil Gevaux and Mark Pierre Dietrich.  There is a £25 charge – details from Joe at 07766 703 498.  Joe also says that anyone entered for the London regional event can have open access to time on a machine at his training centre – call him for details.

Registration for entrants is now open – details from paul@coffeecommunity.co.uk or the entry form is on the Coffee House website.

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Our news item this week about Starbucks in the UK going all-Fairtrade, and becoming the largest purchaser of Fairtrade-certified coffee in the worlds, led to one of those occasional explosive responses that has the editor diving for cover.  No room to discuss it here, but we’ll try to in the next issue of Coffee House… however, the gist of it is that people have been doing their sums, and realised that the commitment amounts to about one-seventh of Starbucks total coffee-buying, and just under one-third of all the Fairtrade coffee in existence.  There is a lot of cynicism being expressed…

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A disturbing report crops up in The Londonist, an online diary of sorts based in the capital. It observes that although the Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee reports on its website that it will re-open after refurbishment, there are To Let signs on the building.  The Museum, established by the late Edward Bramah, was the world's first museum completely devoted to the history of tea and coffee.    The Londonist comments: “we hope against hope that the museum will in fact re-open some time next year; or else we must all mourn the unfortunate demise of yet another of London's few entries in ‘Bollocks to Alton Towers’.”

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We are indebted to Adrian Jones, founder of the Coffee @ chain, for the latest news on the near-topless baristas of certain takeaway coffee shops in the States, a subject we have covered enthusiastically in the recent past.  Adrian observes that many of these shops have more or less given in to public protests - the staff at such coffee shops as Hot Chick-a-Latte (good grief!)  have now increased their clothing to bikinis and lingerie.  However, an operator called Bill Wheeler, who says that it was public protest which stopped his baristas wearing simply tassels and turning to bikini tops instead, has announced that he’s willing to go to the highest courts in the land, to defend his right to dress his baristas in as little as he sees fit.

This might be taken more seriously, were it not for the unfortunate name of his takeaway coffee business – Grab’n’Go.

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There are increasing reports that Tchibo will reduce its UK presence, by ending its co-operation with British supermarkets. Somerfield and Sainsbury have about 100 Tchibo standalone sales points between them, and the brand also has 50 of its own retail branches. The brand said in March that it would not expand any further here, and Property Week suggests today that the future of the company-owned stores is ‘to be reviewed’.

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Barclays has now introduced its contactless payment card at 178 Prêt A Manger stores. This means that a thousand sites are already using the payment method, which was devised for under-£10  purchased such as a coffee and snack.  Among other users are  Coffee Republic and Krispy Kreme. Barclays says that one million customers have now made purchases with the technology.

26 Nov - Starbucks has made the move which supporters of ethically-traded coffee have demanded for so long – it has made a commitment that by the end of next year, all the espresso coffee sold in its British and Irish stores will be Fairtrade-certified.

The commitment means that Starbucks will now become the largest purchaser of Fairtrade-certified coffee in the world, doubling its purchases to forty million pounds in volume.

At a launch event in London, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz said:  “This marks an important milestone in our long-term commitment to ethical sourcing and support for coffee farmers and their communities. By linking our efforts with the global Fairtrade labelling movement, we will be able to have an even larger impact on small farmers, particularly with the opening of Starbucks Farmer Support Centres in Ethiopia and Rwanda early next year.”

Darcy Willson-Rymer, managing director of Starbucks UK and Ireland, said, “Consumers here have high levels of awareness about ethical issues relating to the sourcing of products.  We believe that working with Fairtrade demonstrates our real commitment.”

Speaking exclusively to Coffee House magazine, Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, acknowledged that independent beverage operators in the UK shared an ambivalent view towards Starbucks – on the one hand, the chain was praised for being the trailblazer in the new breed of coffee shops, but highly critical of its quality and sourcing.

“This is highly significant - that Starbucks is going to double its Fairtrade purchases is good news for the farmers.

“What is significant for Fairtrade is the scale of it. The commitment made by people like Pret a Manger and AMT Coffee has been very important – this is now commitment at an entirely different level, and this has set the pace for the very big boys.”

How will other operators view this?  Many beverage operators here have showed support for Fairtrade long before Starbucks.

“I would hope that the coffee trade will see this as a vote of confidence in Fairtrade,” answered  Harriet Lamb. “Those who have already turned to Fairtrade can be proud of being pioneers, and we’re proud of them too.  But for those who are still thinking about it, this is a signal that Fairtrade coffee can be of great quality.

“This now puts Fairtrade centre-stage in the coffee world.”

17 November

13 November 2008

It took the daily press a couple of days, but they have finally looked past the headline figures  of Starbucks’ latest financial report, and realised that the company is blaming Britain for its problems - deep down in the company’s statement was an interesting comment about how its international performance is apparently down to a decline in traffic in the UK.

The bizarre aspect of this, of course, is that Starbucks’ UK operation escaped the recent wide-scale closure of stores in America and Australia, and it was said at the time that this was because Britain was performing well!

The headline figures, taken up gleefully by the international business press, were that the chain did not simply suffer a fall in profits, but a positive tumble in profits, down by a barely-believable 97 per cent. 

Closer inspection of Starbucks’ report, which as always is couched in the company’s unique and almost impenetrable corporate-speak, shows that it is the final quarter of its year which produced the big downturn.   In that notable final quarter, Starbucks did actually increase net revenues by a million dollars, up to $2.5 billion – but from this, it reported net profits of $5.4 million, down from $158.5 million for the same period a year ago.   That gigantic fall in profits appears to be largely, but not entirely, due to the costs of the massive restructuring plan announced in July, as a result of which Starbucks announced the closure of 600 American sites and 61 Australian shops, with the loss of a thousand jobs.    The ‘restructuring charges’ arising from this amount to something over $105 million.

The American division, again in Starbucks’ unique language, ‘posted comparable store sales of negative 5 percent’.  Notably, however, the report then says: ‘overall, comparable store sales for the International segment were flat for the fourth quarter, primarily resulting from a decline in traffic in the U.K. ‘.

Starbucks has now adopted what it calls ‘a more cautious approach in the UK and Western Europe’, while at home, again in Starbucks’ own terminology, ‘the U.S. store opening target is now approximately a negative 20 net new stores’.

Top man Howard Schultz said optimistically, “we appear to be more resilient than many other premium brands.”

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The city of Toronto has given in to the giant Tim Horton’s coffee chain over the matter of recycling coffee cups.   Last week, the city authorities proposed a ban on paper coffee cups with plastic lids, in favour of styrofoam cups, which suit the city’s recycling programme better – the authority added that unless the industry could come up with a paper lid, the use of a paper cup would incur a fine of up to $400 for each offence.

Not surprisingly, the beverage industry had something to say – a spokesman for the giant Canadian coffee retailer Tim Hortons said that the company will ‘absolutely not’ redesign its packaging to meet Toronto’s plans. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association

asked why the city could not simply educate consumers to take the plastic lid off before recycling their coffee cups !

Last night, a city committee gave in – after a day-long debate, the authorities agreed to meet with coffee chains to discuss a realistic way forward. However, the city stepped straight into another row, by agreeing unanimously to order retailers in general to give a ten-cent discount to any customer who brings their own bag, as a way of cutting down on plastic carriers. The retailers’ association is up in arms.

In Britain, the Paper Cup Recycling Group told us that transatlantic recycling authorities are still about five years behind Europe with their environmental arrangements.

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The executive director of the International Coffee organisation, Nestor Osorio, has told a meeting in Trieste that world coffee markets will see a deficit in 2009/10, while demand will increase by around two per cent.  The shortfall is expected to be due to an expected lower harvest in Brazil, in its bi-annual growth cycle after a big year this time. Osorio said additional output cuts may come from some producing countries where farmers had problems finding funds while input costs, such as fertilisers prices, have increased.

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The entry form is now available for the next UK Barista Championships – indeed, you can find it on this website, from today.  There are also still places available at the Pumphrey’s barista jam in Blaydon, a daytime event on Wednesday 26^th November. The event is to prepare entrants for the contest, with guidance from Paul Meikle-Janney, Hugo Hercod and Jeremy Regan. There will also be a guided roasting tour, and, in a phrase which always gives us the giggles, ‘a latte art throwdown’.

Stand well clear…

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Although we think this was reported last year, Costa has decided that coffee shops have now ‘officially’ overtaken pubs as the UK's favourite social hang-outs.  It seems that three-quarters of those questioned (and we think it was about a thousand people), prefer coffee shops  to  pubs for simple socialising.  One-third of respondents report striking up conversations with complete strangers in coffee shops, and 42 per cent have held job interviews in a coffee shop, in preference over an office venue.

Rather more entertainingly, the figures show that 47 per cent of respondents think coffee shops are the perfect venue for a first date, and that 24 per cent find the ambience of a coffee shop makes them inclined to flirt with strangers, or even staff.   Another 24 per cent say a coffee house is the ideal location for meeting your secret lover.

Which, of course, may account for another finding, which is that 49 per cent say they have used coffee shops as the venue for trying to repair relationships… !

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Nairobi Tea and Coffee has launched a new coffee for the catering trade, in support of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.

The company has said that it was greatly touched by reading a recent article by the author Terry Pratchett, who himself suffers from the ailment, and to raise funds for research, Nairobi has now launched a new coffee blend called Speranza, an Italian word meaning ‘hope’. The blend is described as an aromatic coffee with a smooth velvety texture and chocolatey undertones. It is being made available first to catering and foodservice customers, but will probably be produced in retail packs later.

Nairobi Tea and Coffee will give 20 per cent of profits from all its online sales for the month of November 2008 to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.  The same percentage of all sales of Speranza will go to the Trust.

31 October 2008

28th October:

One of the most highly-regarded independent coffee roasters in the country, Steve Leighton of Has Bean in Stafford, has expanded his company by acquisition – he is taking over a customer! 

From the beginning of November, the current wholesale business of Pure Beans in Derby will come under the ownership of Has Bean.  Although Has Bean was roasting the Pure Beans house coffee, this does count as a widening of business for the Stafford company – Pure Beans has a wholesale company base which includes cafes, coffee shops and caterers, whereas Has Bean has developed its own online retail customer base which includes many individual consumers. It is no surprise that with his experience in online retailing, Steve Leighton has also taken over the Pure Beans website and online trade business.   

Meanwhile, Has Bean’s recent online education project, the Coffee 101 course, has signed up 500 members in under three weeks.

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Coffee roaster Coburg has reported pre-tax losses of £133,000, up from £114,000 last year, on a turnover which grew to £3.6 million. Chairman Alistair Summers, who is now stepping down from the board, said in his statement that the group had showed a considerable improvement for the first six months of the year, but had suffered from rising costs.  He said that Coburg is now ‘an extremely efficient roaster of high quality coffee’, and that the business will benefit from consolidation in the market, so the board is looking at acquisition and co-operation opportunities

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We now have the dates for the regional heats of the 2009 UK Barista Championship, from which we see that several towns join the venue list for the first time.  The Northern Ireland event will stretch across two days in Belfast, on 14-15^th January, and the Scottish heat will following, in Edinburgh on 21^st January. The heat for the west of England and south Wales will be in Cardiff on 28^th January.

There will be a two-day south-western event in Exeter on 4-5 February, and the midland heat will be in Derby on Feb 11^th.  The northern event will be in Newcastle on 18^th February, and the south-eastern heat in Lewes on 25^th February.   There will be semi-finals in early March.

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Java Republic, the Dublin coffee roaster which has just opened its carbon-neutral roastery (you can read about it in Coffee House, next week!)  will host a talk by Carolyn Fairman, the executive director of the Coffee Kids Foundation, on Thursday, 6 November at 4pm.  

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We are able to confirm that Roger Cobb, formerly of Mantaya and for the past three years the main man for the Bunn corporation in Europe, has left the American company, for which he oversaw an annual growth of 40 per cent during his three years there.  He is, we understand, available for a return to the European coffee industry.

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Boston Tea Party, the café group which won the Beverage Service Association’s ‘best small chain’ award a couple of weeks ago, took the ‘best independent coffee shop’ title from the voting organized by Allegra Strategies during its recent research on independent coffee shops.  Tinderbox was second, and Red Roaster in Brighton was third.   An intriguing result in the organisation’s award for 'most outstanding contributor to the European coffee market' was Howard Schultz of Starbucks.   At the dinner which followed Allegra’s recent symposium, two posthumous recognitions were made for lifetime services to the industry – the late David Williamson and Dr Ernesto Illy.

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24 September:

23rd September:

22nd September: