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Meet Foundation Coffee Roasters

We recently sat down with Jack, founder at Foundation Coffee Roasters to delve a little deeper into the brand that’s delivering not only specialty coffee, but good vibes and a strong community ethic to boot.

Based in St Ives, Cornwall, Foundation are on a mission to create high-grade specialty coffee using the best possible ethical practices with minimal environmental impact. And given our recent pairing for our limited edition ‘Brew Bundle’ we wanted to find out more about what drives the brand and makes them tick!

Have you seen our Circular x Foundation Brew Bundle Gift Set? Click here to find out more.

Hi Team, Could you share the story behind Foundation Coffee Roasters?

A long time ago in a cold northern county far far away, I ran a Roastery. Regrettably it wasn’t remotely the lifestyle dream and importantly for me it wasn’t anywhere near the Ocean.

Foundation was born from a profound love of the UK’s Coastal Zones, Oceans and advocating best ecological practices. I moved back to Cornwall just over three years ago, opened Foundation and it’s been a memorable journey that’s for sure.

How important is sourcing & ethics within the brand?

The two key pillars for myself in life, and Foundation in business, are a well aligned moral compass and respect. Good folk really do care about where their quality brews come from and who they support along the chain of supply. We care, you care, so I guess the short answer would be our own sourcing ethics are super important to us. More so I’d place importance on respectfully questioning everything along the supply network, unfortunately there are a lot of hiding places for exploitative practices in the coffee industry and we’re constantly questioning things that don’t quite add up for us.

How important is sustainability to you and your team?

Without a doubt this is daily conversation topic and a life style choice for us. We all find it really quite interesting when certain brands or companies have to market themselves as everyone’s favourite buzz word: sustainable.

As Casey our Head Roaster puts it ‘if you truly care about it and it is of importance then you’d do it regardless of potential marketing gains’. Short answer, YES! Sustainability across all aspects of life is immensely important to us as a team.

Any tips for the perfect coffee at home?

“Tough one, perfection is ultimately
unattainable no? Progression is key, keep brewing what you like, how you like, where
you like, and definitely share the great ones!”

If there’s one thing you could change about the coffee industry, what would it be?

The systemic issue of the ‘race to the bottom’ being put to rest. It’s often demoralising watching competitors in the same specialty coffee market attempt to
occupy a space with such great outwardly promoted values, yet internally practicing poorly justified and unsustainable models. I’ll go on record to say I loath price wars, if it’s great it’s great and will cost what it needs to cost to sustain the model and everyone fairly.

You’re a Cornwall-based brand just like us. Has this inspired your work?

100%. We have many coastal spots close to our hearts that we venture to around Cornwall. We’re doing our very best to grow a community of customers and friends around the Cornish coast so we can visit more of them.

Delivery days are often pleasantly interrupted with a break to hop in for waves, swims, rock jumping or a casual dive. You’ll have to join us one day.

You have a strong connection within your community, could you tell us more about this?

“Community is of upmost significance in a healthy human society. Whether at origin on coffee farms, with our wholesale family, connecting with other coffee
roasters, in the surf or within our compact little team. People grow people, people grow businesses, business relationships and long term friendships grow from community outreach and generally being a good human. It’s super important we all look after each other”.

What does the future of Foundation look like? Anything exciting in store?

“There will be a lot for us to tell in 2023 thats for sure. With Christmas looming I’m practising the gentle zen art of ‘keeping my lips sealed’, I’m terrible at blurting secrets.. Working with you guys is exciting!”

Circular x Foundation Brew Bundle Gift Set

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Circular&Co., Unit 6, Cligga Head Industrial Estate, St. Georges Hill, Perranporth, Cornwall TR6 0EB

01872 575000 | Contact Us

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