August’s Caffè Case Study was conducted with Hugo Hercod of Relish in Wadebridge. Relish Food & Drink Location: Wadebride, CornwallOn the high street: No, tucked away off the beaten track – deliberately so!Annual turnover: £250kWho owns the business: Sarah and Hugo HercodNo. of staff: 9 (including Hugo and Sarah)Opened: December 2006Business model: Café with delicatessenLength [Read more]

You can’t outspend the big chains, says Britain’s top lateral-thinking author… but you can outrun them. “Only the paranoid will survive…” As business philosophies go, that’s an attention-getter.  It came from the chairman of Intel, the computer chip people, and it has a major truth behind it – it means that if you do not [Read more]

The café-bar trade may not after all be entirely isolated in its position on outside tables, chairs, awnings and barriers. For many years, the trade has fought a constant battle against local authority planning departments and county highways departments – often both at the same time.  Even many of the councils who have spoken of [Read more]

One of the world’s greatest (and most expensive) coffees is now available in a decaffeinated version.  For the first time, Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee has been processed with the Swiss Water decaffeination technique, and will be distributed by Sea Island Coffees of London, the authorized distributors for Europe. According to a report in the Daily [Read more]

The UK’s best teas and coffees, as judged by the Guild of Fine Food, can now be promoted through the beverage trade with the gold star ratings they received in this year’s Great Taste Awards. There has, however, been a slight murmur of enquiry over the judging of the coffees in this year’s awards as [Read more]

The coffee trade has made a considerable impression at one of the world’s biggest think-tank conferences.  At the TED conference in Edinburgh in July, the Coffee Common organisation drew together a collection of the UK’s top baristas, using a selection of top coffees and state-of-the-art equipment to promote the coffee trade. Coffee Common is an [Read more]

The next new ‘origin’ to appear in the world coffee market is likely to be China, with Starbucks having made a decision to invest in coffee growing and processing in the country.  It is probably not a coincidence that Starbucks has already identified China as its biggest potential growth market. There is already a history [Read more]

Galleria illy, the coffee brand’s exhibition of coffee and art, will be in London for a month from 12th September. It is a temporary exhibition space hosted by lighting and furnishings designers FLOS and Moroso, and will include art, literature, science, design and food and wine events presented by famous designers. The artist Francesco Clemente [Read more]

Murmurs have begun to spread through the British beverage trade about the possibility of a new contest for tea, along the lines of the well-known coffee barista championships, following the holding of a ‘world’ event in America in which no British contestants appeared… indeed, in which only one European country was represented. The snappily-titled Tea [Read more]

The Costa café at Great Portand Street, London, has won the ‘café and fast food’ section of the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.  The café, designed by Stiff & Trevillion, was shortlisted against several sites known for their espresso, including Beas of Bloomsbury, Tinderbox and Peggy Porschen and Moo:baa of Birmingham. Meanwhile, Costa surprised the [Read more]