magazine
businessinfomag.uk
38
Catering
Upgrade your coffee
offering
So important has ‘high street quality’
coffee become to the UK’s office
workers that Adrian Stagg, Managing
Director of Miko Coffee UK, advises
employers to provide a steady supply
of premium joe to keep staff happy,
motivated and productive. It might
even be what’s required to keep them
in the office, rather than around the
corner in Costa or Starbucks.
“If the right machine and coffee
partner is chosen, the exodus to the
coffee shop during the day will be less
pronounced; and the incentive to skip the
coffee shop before arriving at the office
where the coffee is just as good and
much, much cheaper has to be good for
staff morale and productivity,” he said.
Happily, the wide choice of coffee
machines available means that a
business should have no trouble
finding a tabletop or floor-standing
model to suit its needs, including filter
coffee machines, traditional espresso
machines, coffee pod/capsule machines
and increasingly popular bean-to-cup
machines that produce high quality
coffee directly from the bean.
High-tech coffee
It is not just the quality of the coffee
that’s improving. Coffee machines
themselves are getting smarter, with
Wifi, Bluetooth and interactivity
becoming standard on new generation
models. Many have touchscreens for
easy drinks selection. In some cases,
these can also be used to display
advertising, dietary information or work-
related notices.
Another development highlighted
by Stagg is support for new methods of
payment including pre-pay apps. “You can
order your drink from your phone whilst
sitting at your desk, collect it when you
are ready and if there is a charge it will
debit your pre-pay account,” he said.
Stagg adds that for operators,
telemetry’s ability to transmit data
directly to a service hub helps improve
reliability and service levels. “The coffee
For more and more UK workers, getting through the day without the
stimulus of coffee is unthinkable.When Swift Office Cleaning Services
asked office workers to name the one thing they couldn’t do without in
the office, 27% said coffee; just 4% said their friends
1
.
You can order
your drink
from your
phone whilst
sitting at your
desk
Frugalpac claims to have
overcome the difficulties of
recycling conventional paper
coffee cups. Currently just one
in 400 of the 2.5 billion paper
coffee cups disposed of in the
UK each year are recycled, with
most ending up in landfill.
Recycling paper cups is
difficult because, before being
cut and shaped into a cup, virgin
paper is lined with a waterproof
plastic layer. This is bonded
tightly to the paper and becomes
folded into seams when the
cup is made, making it hard
to separate during recycling.
Currently, just two places in the
UK are able to do this.
Frugalpac is designed from
the outset for collection and
recycling in normal paper mills.
By making the cup first and then
fitting a plastic lining, the film
does not have to be bonded so
tightly and isn’t folded into the
seams. This ensures that paper
and plastic come away from each
other during normal recycling.
Independent certification
company Intertek has calculated
that the carbon footprint of a
Frugalpac cup is about half that
of a normal paper cup.
Fairtrade coffee sales up
Sales of Fairtrade coffee
increased by 11% in 2015,
raising £5.7m in Fairtrade
Premium for farmers and workers
to invest in their businesses
and communities. Fairtrade
Foundation’s annual report,
Our
Impact Story 2015-2016
, states
that growing UK sales of major
Fairtrade categories, including
cocoa, bananas, tea and coffee,
generated almost £30 million in
Fairtrade Premium in 2015.
fairtrade.org.uk
Everything in its place
Durable’s new Coffee Point range
(left) helps keep office kitchens,
break-out areas and meeting
rooms neat and tidy. The modular
system includes a Coffee Point
Box for tea bags, coffee pods/
capsules, sugar sachets and milk
cartons; a Caddy drawer insert;
a portable Case dispenser; a
serving tray; and a bin for small
recyclable items.
Divide and recycle
Another neat solution for small
office kitchens is the dwiss
recycling centre designed by
Fellow53. Made in the UK from
beech plywood, this compact
unit has four compartments for
the separation of different waste
types. It costs £895 and can be
ordered from
.
Recycling breakthrough for paper cups
