Root & Branch Coffee – A Coffee Company Born with a Mission

by Simon Johnston Photography © Root & Branch

Occasionally industries and institutions experience much needed disruption. Stagnancy and atrophy prevent innovation and throttle creativity, to the net detriment of everyone. This was the very context out of which Specialty Coffee was born. Traded on the Intercontinental Exchange in New York, coffee was a commodity which often traded at less than its cost of production.

^ Simon Johnston outside Root & Branch Coffee Roasters & Brew Bar in Belfast

In fact, the only entity that profited throughout the supply chain were the brokers themselves, leaving those who did the hard work – namely farmers and labourers – barely covering their costs. It was definitely an industry ripe for sea change (you’ll see what I did there, writing in this somewhat nautical publication!).

With the help of some Kiwi entrepreneurs, Specialty Coffee hit the shores of the UK in the early 1990’s. The Espresso Rooms opened in London and immediately got traction. Here, coffee was more expensive, but it was also treated respectfully and was of detectably higher quality than the freeze-dried coffee or beans which had adorned supermarket shelves for so long. At the Espresso Rooms and some other later London cafes, great effort was put into helping educate customers around concepts such as ‘direct trade’.

^ Agri Washing Station in Uganda | Photo credit Omwani Coffee

Roasters began to travel to the farms where the beans were grown, and paid significantly more than ‘fair trade’. Fostering long lasting relationships with farmers and ensuring that they put these extra funds into paying their labourers better, as well as committing to ongoing investment in their own facilities, became a backbone of this fledgling coffee movement. Ultimately, shifting the incentive structure within the supply chain, resulted in a meaningful impact on the quality of coffee that was delivered to us here in the UK, and consequently, conscientious roasters and cafés stepped up their game. Gradually, specialty coffee ate into the unsustainable commodity coffee market and the bigger named players have now had to change their approach for fear of becoming irrelevant.

^ Migoti Washing Station in Burundi | Photo credit Omwani Coffee

I have a background in biochemistry as well as a love of all things food and drink related. Having left my former career behind, I spent a year swatting up on coffee roasting. In 2015 my kitchen became a makeshift lab. I then found a charming little courtyard and building down a side street of one of Belfast’s up-and-coming areas, and it was here that I began the process of translating my theories into action. Hosting an espresso bar and a new production roaster, Root & Branch quickly became something of a touchstone for coffee lovers in Northern Ireland. As cashflow improved, I was able to make trips to countries such as Ethiopia and Colombia to build relationships with the coffee farmers there. Soon after, the mainstream media noticed us and were praising this little coffee emporium. With local and touring musicians checking in to play at Root & Branch’s ’Sunday Sessions’, the atmosphere was fantastic, and a host of new opportunities arose, such as collaborating with Bushmills Distillery for their North American market.

Over the last years, the company has ebbed and flowed (sorry, another nautical reference I’m afraid!) as Covid changed the hospitality landscape both temporarily and in many respects, more permanently. So, I focused the business on wholesale and moved production to East Belfast into a beautiful red brick former linen mill, close to the Titanic Quarter. The linen and ship-building industries were, once upon a time, the economic heartbeat of the city before it became known for less laudable reasons.

Our current roastery hosts the most advanced roasting system available as well as an espresso bar allowing customers to drink Root & Branch coffee as it should be poured. Throughout its history, we have always tried to innovate and advance the cause of specialty coffee. As well as being Northern Ireland’s first solely specialty coffee roaster, we were the first in the world to package its beans in nitrogen flushed aluminium cans. Not only do these provide a more sustainable packaging solution than valved bags, but they also extend the shelf-life of the beans from 3 weeks to 6 months. These cans are extremely popular, and we have made them available via a subscription service where customers worldwide can receive two different coffees from two different origins and processes every month.

We have worked hard this year and, as a result, this summer we opened a new city centre coffee bar close to Belfast’s new Grand Central Station.

^ Mecata Washing Station in Ethiopia | Photo credit Omwani Coffee

I still believe that the specialty coffee industry has some way to go before it fully leans into its potential to create root and branch change (small pun here, no nautical theme!) in the industry. One of my ongoing frustrations as a roaster is that so much value leaks out of the supply chain through transactions that are carried out via multiple currency pairs (£’s to €’s to $’s for example), long settlement times for farmers, as well as the host of middlemen who all take their cut on the way through the process.

Root & Branch has been at the forefront of not only educating the public about coffee, but also helping to educate the industry about Bitcoin and how new payment rails can ‘root and branch’ revolutionise the industry with significant value add. Not only can this change improve efficiencies by cutting out those who benefit from the financialisaton of the industry but who don’t provide a value add to the product, but it would ultimately enable farmers to be paid more, be paid quicker, and in turn, protect them from all-too-frequent episodes of overnight currency devaluations in their own countries.

Like coffee, sailing is an important part of my life, although it is currently limited to helping my kids with their Optimist which we sail on the shores of the lovely Strangford Lough.

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