It's not about the logo
A few weeks ago we became a Certified B Corporation, scoring 101.8 on our first attempt. You may have spotted the logo on our bags, in the shop windows or at the bottom of our emails.
We're proud of it. But a logo is only a logo. It sums up a lot of work in one small mark, and the work is the part that counts. So rather than showing off the badge, this post explains what sits behind it.
More than recyclable packaging
People often assume B Corp is a sustainability award you get for compostable cups and recycled bags. Packaging matters, but it's a small part of the picture.
B Corp certification is run by the non-profit B Lab, and it looks at the whole business. You complete the B Impact Assessment, which covers pay and benefits, who you buy from, how decisions get made, what happens to your waste, how you treat customers and what you give back. Every answer needs evidence, and B Lab checks it. You need at least 80 points to certify. Most ordinary businesses that take the assessment score around 50.
Certified companies also change their legal governing documents so that directors must consider people and planet alongside profit, and everyone is reassessed every three years. You can't certify once and forget about it.
The assessment covers five areas: Workers, Governance, Community, Environment and Customers. None of them carries the others. Here's what each looks like for us.
Workers
We assumed this would be the easy section. It taught us the most.
We're an accredited Real Living Wage employer, so everyone is paid against the real cost of living rather than the government minimum. That's true whether you're roasting in Winchester, packing wholesale orders or on bar in one of our shops. We also offer health benefits and a monthly wellbeing contribution, because a life outside work matters too.
Specialty coffee is a craft, and people get good at it through time and practice. We invest in ongoing training across the business so a job here can turn into a career: a barista moving into roasting, a Saturday shift becoming a shop to run.
Then there are the less formal things. Regular socials that welcome friends and family, and a team that knows each other beyond the rota. We'd do all of it anyway. What the assessment gave us was a reason to write it down, question it and look for what could be better.
Governance
The least glamorous pillar, and the one everything else sits on. Governance is about how decisions get made, who's accountable, and how a business stays honest with itself.
For a roaster, a lot of that is how you buy coffee. We work with sourcing partners we trust, including DR Wakefield, Raw Material and Algrano, building long-term relationships with importers and producers who share our values instead of chasing the cheapest price each season. We also trade directly with Calaro in Brazil, three years in now. It's where Rocala comes from. Buying this way costs more and takes more effort, but it means we know where our coffee comes from and who gets paid for it.
Governance also means holding ourselves to account. Social and environmental impact is now written into our legal commitments, so it shapes the business even when things are tight. In three years we'll have to show our progress. We'd rather have that pressure than not.
Community
We roast in Winchester and run shops in London, and we want both places to be better off for us being there.
Locally that means a volunteer-led community hub, supporting schools and charities through fundraising, and getting stuck into community event days through the year. Both shops use Too Good To Go, so food left at the end of the day gets eaten rather than binned.
We also look beyond our own postcodes to hospitality as a whole. The industry runs on skilled people, and plenty of them start with no formal training. We help through education, training and long-term relationships with people coming up in the trade, including the cafés and businesses we supply. Some will end up working for us, most won't, and that's fine. A healthier industry is better for everyone.
Environment
Roasting uses energy, shipping uses more, and packaging adds up fast. We won't pretend we're a zero-impact business. What we can do is keep making practical changes we can measure. There's more detail on our sustainability page.
Roasting. New roasting equipment has halved our roasting hours and improved energy efficiency by 25%. The same coffee, far less gas.
Packaging. Our reusable wholesale tubs have now replaced more than three-quarters of a million single-use coffee bags. Takeaway packaging in the shops is compostable, and our retail packaging is made from recycled materials.
Waste. This is where Environment and Community meet. Coffee chaff, the papery skin that comes off the beans as they roast, goes to a local carpenter and gets pressed into fuel briquettes that help heat homes in the village. Used grounds go to local garden centres. Our jute sacks are passed on to a pub group, a farm and a zoo, and plenty turn up at community events. Very little leaves the roastery as rubbish.
Packaging is the part of this pillar people see, but it's one line of the assessment. The invisible stuff, like how long the roaster runs and where the chaff ends up, often makes more difference.
Customers
The fifth pillar asks how a business treats the people buying from it. For us it comes down to one question: what's different about buying a bag of our coffee?
Mostly, it's how much you can know about it. We can tell you where it was grown, who we bought it from and why. Those long-term relationships also mean more consistent quality year to year, and we know the producers well enough to explain what's in the bag properly.
It also shows up in how we roast. As an Australian-influenced, third wave roaster we run two programmes: one for white coffees, the ristretto-based blends built for flat whites and piccolos, and one for black coffees, the single origins roasted lighter for filter. Two different jobs, roasted differently, so you get the right coffee for the way you drink it.
And the openness carries on after you buy. Message our roasters on BrewBuddy, our WhatsApp line, seven days a week, and you'll get a real person who roasts the coffee, not a chatbot.
So, forget the logo
We know how this can look: business gets badge, business puts badge everywhere, business moves on. We don't want that to be us.
The logo is a useful shortcut. It tells you someone independent has checked how we run things. But B Corp isn't something you have, it's something you keep doing, across dozens of small decisions: what we pay, who we buy from, where the chaff goes, how we answer a question on a Sunday morning.
We'll be reassessed in three years. Between now and then we'll work on where we scored lowest, keep reducing our impact, and keep sharing progress, including the bits that don't look good. If we get it right, the logo on the bag will be the least interesting thing about it.
