Pure Roast Coffee wins new business worth £1.2m in Britain
Pure Roast Coffee, the Northern Irish coffee business, has achieved a key quality accreditation that resulted last month in £1.2 million of new business outside Northern Ireland for coffee pods and beans.
Based in Lisburn, County Antrim, the company, a specialist in coffee for foodservice organisations, achieved British Retail Consortium Grade A accreditation and will enable it to grow business especially with major retailers in Britain, the Republic of Ireland and further afield.
The accreditation helped the company to secure substantial new business for over six million 'easy service express' (ESE) coffee pods, including Fair Trade coffee, a year from major distributors and a leader in coffee machines.
In addition, a vending equipment business in Newcastle Upon Tyne, placed a contract for 120 tonnes of coffee beans a year with Pure Roast Coffee.
The new business - equivalent to 24 million cups of coffee a year - was announced by Stuart Hewitt, Pure Roast Coffee's Technical Director, who says: "The latest contracts strengthen our position as a major supplier particularly of coffee pods in Great Britain.
"We are seeing a growing interest in pods because of their convenience and the guarantee of high quality coffee with a consistently strong flavour.
"Achieving BRC Grade A accreditation at the first attempt is important for us because it's an essential requirement to enable us to do business with leading wholesalers and retailers. It's effectively a badge of high quality and consistency in terms of facilities, operating procedures and manufacturing systems.
"The accreditation is the outcome of extensive investment in finance, management time and other resources by us, still a small business, and in response to approaches from a broad range of potential clients from most catering sectors keen to benefit in particular from our expertise in the development and production of ESE coffee pods to the specific requirements of customers.
"The new business enables us to build on the 75 per cent year-on-year growth that we've been experiencing and carries forward contracts won in international markets with Emirates Airline and other high profile customers," he adds.