From our first little roastery inside the young offender’s institute, HMYOI Aylesbury, we’ve grown into our commercial-scale roastery inside HMP The Mount, a Category C men’s prison in Hemel Hempstead.

We want to break down the barriers of a traditionally pretentious industry and prove that anyone can become an expert in speciality coffee.

Where most opportunities for jobs inside prison revolve around cleaning or cooking, our roastery enables men serving sentences to learn practical skills in coffee roasting, production and logistics.

Inside the roastery

ETHICAL COFFEE SOURCING

Just like our approach to roasting and training, we source coffee in such a way that prioritises empowering people who are disadvantaged or disenfranchised.

Every sourcing decision is made intentionally in order to maximise the impact for the producers. We are proud to say that 94% of all the coffee we sold last year hit at least 1 of these 3 key sourcing principles, our goal for 2025 is to increase this to 100%.

Rehabilitation

In line with our mission in the UK, we support the rehabilitation of coffee producers previously involved in conflict, crime or the drug trade.

We’ve been working with a project in Colombia which supports farmers who were previously members of paramilitary groups, and want to move away from growing illegal plants for the drugs industry and instead produce coffee. This allows them to have a steady, sustainable income which provides for their family and creates stability within their community.

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12%

of our purchased coffee

Sustainable Initiatives

Economic and environmental sustainability are important issues at every stage of the coffee supply chain.

We work with Caravela, who on top of paying farmers up front, have an on-the-ground team to work with farmers improving their farm yield and reduce carbon emissions.

We also work closely with Raw Material CIC, who reinvest all profits at origin.

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52%

of our purchased coffee

Female Economic Empowerment

We support the promotion of female coffee producers to improve gender equality in the industry. Women do most of the coffee field labour but rarely hold positions of power and we want to reset the balance.

We’ve built a relationship with Patricia Coelho, a female producer in Brazil, to create our house espresso blend, The Block. Now one of our bestsellers, the volume of coffee we’re purchasing from Patricia is helping her to invest resources into quality and processing to focus her efforts on the speciality market.

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31%

of our purchased coffee