Vivre la difference!

As global corporates do, somehow Nespresso managed to get an Independent Newspaper reporter to do a 3 page spread for free. Because I don't have the budget to compete against that kind of power and in case the Independent Newspaper don't publish my response, here are my views on the editorial:

4/10/07

The Editor

The Independent Newspaper

Re: Article “The cult of Nespresso”

Dear Sir,

As a roaster of speciality coffee I read with despair the item on Nespresso and how two of the top restaurants in the UK proudly use the product.

Comments such as “consistency” and not having “half an hours worth of washing up” only go to highlight why the ubiquitous tea bag and M & S ready meals have come to be such a success in a generation of time starved automatons.

Do the chefs of Sketch and the Fat Duck pop down to their local supermarket for ready made Shepherd’s pie when they put it on their menu, in the knowledge that it will be “consistently good”? I doubt it, so why then should Coffee not be given the same level of respect?

Coffee is an organic product, and like meat, broccoli or potatoes varies from batch to batch and season to season, the challenge is to consistently put great coffee in the cup, but then isn’t that true of most foods, and why we recognise great chefs?

In a world of de-skilling and dumbing down none is better than global organisations such as Nestle. Why should I as a business go through all that costly training with real human beings when Nestle offer the panacea of the capsule. Just think how a businesses bottom line is improved, simply pressing a button allows you to carry on paying the minimum wage to the next person off the boat.

To hell with the cost in terms of packaging waste and the double standards of people who on the one hand re-cycle their newspapers, but on the other make every coffee they drink using a Nestle capsule.

I’ve spent the last 18 years of my life roasting coffee for a living, and it is a huge challenge, but it has been and is a wonderful, sometimes frustrating, but mostly exhilarating journey. I’ve met people from all around the world – People who are passionate about what they do, despite being paid very little, mostly because the largest roasters in the world are able to play one country off against another.

I can count growers as my friends; I want to continually do the best I can for them and all their hard work. I can’t morally beat them down when I know what goes into delivering great coffee, and nor should our society.

Great coffee, like great wine and great food can take a lifetime to perfect, please don’t let it be reduced to the equivalent of a happy pill. Where are the Gordon Ramsey’s or Delia Smith’s of the coffee world who will stand up and defend the good name of coffee as roasted by thousands of micro roasters around the globe? It’s time to stand up and be counted, otherwise everything written in the seminal booklet “Mugged” , Poverty in your coffee cup by Oxfam will come true.

Inspiration for small businesses

As anyone who runs their own business knows, it can be a lonely place sometimes. You do what you think is right and what you believe in, however things don't always go to plan and as a result it can leave you deflated and wondering why you make the necessary sacrifices.

Well a customer of mine called today asking why we didn't do a particular product line under our own brand, he believed that our reputation is such that people would fall over themselves to use it if we put our name to the product.

I told him that we continually look for these kinds of opportunities, but that the volumes involved sometimes meant that we couldn't justify the cost. He was pleased to hear this and appreciated my dilemma. He then came out with this wonderful quote which really reassures you that what you are striving to achieve isn't being done in vane and is appreciated:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Apparently it is attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke

I know it sounds dramatic, and not all our competitors are evil, but at least it reflects that other people appreciate our values and that we are not ploughing a lone furrow.


I hope that inspires those of you who run your own businesses