Category: Interview

Founded in 1994, Cornish Bakery now has more than 50 outlets across the UK. Founder Steve Grocutt speaks to World Coffee Portal about why high streets present the greatest opportunities for growth, the importance of premium coffee and why bakeries are the new coffee shops.

How would you describe your current trading?

Steady. For the first time since the pandemic trading really feels quite normal – if we can all remember what that is!

Looking at our market segments, tourism boomed in 2021 then dropped in 2022 but remained ahead of 2019 levels. High streets are performing very well and above our expectations, with sales higher than the previous year. I believe high street stores provide our greatest opportunity for growth.

Additionally, our operations at the NEC exhibition centre in Birmingham are booming, which is really positive considering our sites there were closed for two years due to the pandemic.

Our expansion is primarily focused on high streets in quality towns and cities, with new stores set to open shortly in Bury St Edmunds and Truro and several more that will be announced soon.

In high footfall tourism locations, we are also set to open outlets in Bakewell and Whitby. To drive our expansion plans we now have two agents on a brief to find us the ideal buildings in the ideal locations.

• “It’s very important to us that the coffee we serve is directly sourced and of the highest quality”

What prompted your recent rebranding?

The rebranding was driven by our corporate change in direction to more mainstream high street locations.

Our previous branding said: ‘Cross the threshold and you are in Cornwall wherever the bakery may be. You’re on holiday relax take some Cornish moments.’

The new branding is more ‘of Cornwall’ as it were, where we purposefully dialled down the brand and dialled up the bakery. The change is already delivering powerful results.

How important is coffee to a food-focused operator like Cornish Bakery?

Many trends changed during the pandemic, driven mostly by the domination of take-away sales. We now see most of our post-pandemic growth coming from coffee.

It’s very important to us that the coffee we serve is directly sourced and of the highest quality. Almost from the start we have worked with Union Hand Roasted Coffee and enjoyed the journey together.

I am delighted to see their success in achieving B Corp accreditation, winning the Queens Award for Enterprise and being the winner of the Best Specialty Coffee Roaster and Most Ethical Brand at the 2022 at the European Coffee Awards.

Additionally, there are team origin trips where our teams meet the farmers and cooperatives. The next trip is planned for May this year to Rwanda. These trips actively involve and engage our committed employees and help us all see the difference that Union makes in the world thanks to the way they source their coffee.

• “We simply want to nourish our customers with the freshest possible quality food washed down by the best imaginable coffee”

How are you elevating the bakery experience?

In 2019 I would have been walking up and down high streets murmuring to myself: ‘Why are there are no quality bakeries here?’

I saw it as a big opportunity to offer the customer something different where the food was as good as it could ever be – made and baked in-store daily in ‘feature-kitchens’ by passionate teams.

Our vision is ‘to redefine what a bakery does and can be’, We see this as an open door to create a bakery that is different. We are not your local bakery to get your daily bread, in fact we do not even sell bread. We simply want to nourish our customers with the freshest possible quality food washed down by the best imaginable coffee. This is why my continual mantra is: ‘Bakery is the new coffee shop,’ and we continue to prove that every single day.

“Coffee” is a beautiful world of tastes and traditions. It has recently become the focus of interest for young entrepreneurs who have specialized in this field and provided important experiences in promoting coffee culture and turning it into a rich experience.

Shamma bin Lahej, a certified coffee connoisseur, tells us her passion for specialty coffee, for which an electronic platform has been dedicated to those who love and are interested in specialty coffee, to create a coffee community that introduces them to the most important coffee crops in the UAE. This passion does not stop at this platform, but rather includes various aspects in The field of coffee, tasting it for example, where Shamma is classified as a certified taster in this field and also offers workshops in this aspect.. Through this meeting, we get to know Shamma bin Lahej and her most important projects:

What is specialty coffee, and how did it become popular among young people?

Specialty coffee is the journey of the coffee fruit from the farm to the cup.. A journey behind which a great effort is made to pay attention to the details of the coffee in terms of soil, climate, harvest time, processing, shipping and roasting.. These details result in very distinctive tastes and notes in the cup of coffee. Specialty coffee has been known since approximately 1970, but it became popular among young people in the region in the beginning of 2012, when some Emirati entrepreneurs started specialty coffee projects out of passion to offer something different.

What are the differences or similarities between it and our “Arabic” or traditional coffee?

The similarities differ in terms of the degree of roasting of the coffee and the method of roasting. Arabic coffee may be manually roasted and specialty coffee by means of different technology and observing different parameters in terms of temperatures, time and coffee density. Also, some Arabic spices are often added to improve the taste of Arabic coffee that suits the taste of Arabs, such as saffron and cardamom, unlike specialty coffee, nothing is added to obtain natural hints from the crop itself resulting from natural factors. Specialized coffee is also made with milk to obtain various drinks such as latte, flat white, and others.

Who is the Barcita, and what tasks does it perform?

The coffee journey ultimately depends 10% on the barista, who is called the “coffee maker”, as it is his responsibility to extract the coffee professionally to deliver the desired result in the coffee chain and present it with the best quality in terms of texture, properties and balance in the cup of coffee.

How did you get into this field, and did you face any challenges?

I started my journey in specialty coffee in 2015 as the owner of a project for specialty coffee in the Emirate of Sharjah. I was motivated by passion, as I invested in developing my skills and learning in this field, and I took the necessary experiences and certificates from the International Specialty Coffee Organization to confirm the quality of the coffee I offer. My passion for coffee did not stop, as I went to participate in the local coffee tournaments, as there is a shortage or very little interest on the part of citizens to participate in the local tournaments in the country, and thank God I got first place in the Aeropress Championship for the coffee industry at the level of the Emirate of Sharjah, and I participated in other tournaments Tasting and drip coffee brewing championships, too.

The concept of “coffee tasters” is spreading. Who is a coffee taster?

The art of tasting coffee is important, whether for coffee lovers to try different crops or for entrepreneurs who run their own coffee projects, whether as a roaster or as a coffee shop specialized in serving coffee, depends on certain standards and skills.

Do you present workshops on coffee tasting? A brief overview of these workshops and the mechanism for presenting them..and your future plans in this field?

As a certified consultant in entrepreneurship from the Dubai Knowledge Authority and as a member of the Specialty Coffee Organization and a certified taster, I started organizing short workshops out of a passion to support local coffee shops, to introduce the steps of tasting and preparing drip coffee as well, and to spread the culture of coffee. As for future plans, I am working on opening a Harvester company for the supply of green coffee and roasting in Dubai in partnership with entrepreneurs who are passionate about coffee, as it will deal directly with farms, purify distinctive crops and provide them to those interested in the country. I also opened an electronic “Sard platform” to support local roasters, where distinctive crops from UAE roasters only are displayed, to introduce the home coffee community or home barista to the distinctive crops and the beautiful efforts made by the entrepreneurs of coffee roasters..and I called it “Sard platform” because for each coffee A tale to tell.