Suffolk coffee merchant Paddy & Scott’s full of beans as it celebrates remarkable rise from single roaster to national brand

A Suffolk coffee merchants which has gone from roasting beans in a garage to an international operation with outlets across the UK is celebrating its tenth year in business.

Paddy & Scott’s marked its remarkable rise with celebrations at its Bury St Edmunds and Hadleigh cafés, where baristas got into the spirit as founder and chief executive Scott Russell served artisan coffee.

The £3.2m turnover business, based at Earl Soham, near Framlingham, began in Scott’s garage with a two kilo roaster, and now produces around 90,000 cups of coffee a day, with more than 150 branded concessions across the UK.

It exports to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow and expanding to the Middle East and supplies slow-roasted coffee to some top UK restaurants and London hotels, as well as to large corporates such as BP, Virgin Atlantic, Sony, HP, O2 and Barclays.

At the celebrations, staff sported company-branded T-shirts bearing the slogan: “Things ground this good are usually illegal”, which feature among its new range of online merchandise.

“It’s a bit of fun - Every single shot of espresso we serve in our joints is ground to order,” said Scott.

The secret behind the success of the business was “a lot of energy, passion and good old hard work”, he added.

“People seem to like our honesty and values. It’s taken a lot to get this far and we’re incredibly proud to be part Suffolk’s global food and drink companies.”

As part of its 10th anniversary ‘Fuelling Ambition’ initiative, the company has refreshed its brand, launching a new website and a range of merchandise.

It is also working on a ground-breaking project involving a Kenyan coffee farm aimed at redressing the balance of trade through supplying coffee direct to customers from their own coffee tree.

The community-driven venture has been under development for the last 12 months and will be launched in September for the Christmas gift market.

“We’d really like to thank all our customers for their continued support. We’ve got a very exciting future, growing our own coffee, but it’s our community project in Kenya which we feel genuinely humbled and energised by,” said Scott.

“Sustainability and protection of our environment is important, so too are the communities that rely on the coffee plantations for their existence. We care passionately about these things and want to behave responsibly.”

The firm was one of the first UK coffee merchants to embrace aluminum free and fully recyclable packaging and was chosen to help launch Frugalpac coffee cups earlier this year.

Service co-ordinator Jess Palmer said: “We even re-use our coffee ground waste - it’s a great fertiliser.”