Brave
OPINION
new world After a testing year for a UK café sector now planning its re-opening, Café Life caught up with Lincoln and York’s CEO, James Sweeting (pictured), on a range of topics, the company having recently unveiled their investment in a new packaging line, while, like most other enterprises large and small, negotiating the effects of Brexit and Covid.
Timely investment Earlier this year, Lincoln and York (www.lincolnandyork.com), a UK-based coffee roaster that services many of the high street’s most popular coffee brands, unveiled its £2million investment in its market leading roastery at its base in Brigg, North Lincolnshire. As the QSR market collapsed with lockdowns, the company say that they saw an opportunity to grow and become more innovative, having in the process also given themselves a competitive advantage, they feel. For one thing, the innovative automation packing process increases efficiency and effectiveness, meaning coffee can be shelf-ready in less than an hour. They have now also increased the business’s capacity to supply the retail coffee market, reinforcing itself as a market leader with longer-term growth potential, they propose, as well as helping to support the foodservice market as it stabilises in 2021. While the out of home sector suffered, retail and web sales for coffee have risen significantly and the new machine means Lincoln and York are well placed to drive growth and innovation in this important channel, they point out. They worked with Brambati, who supplied the coffee grinding machinery for in-line grinding, degassing silos and the coffee management software. The packing machine itself, was constructed by Goglio SpA, and provides top-tie and reseal capability with an ultrasonic valve sealer to give a cleaner, faster application. The end of line robotics were supplied by IMA and feature an auto carton labeller and robot palletisation to enable quicker and more efficient packing. The new line, standing at over 10m tall, took over 400 hours to construct and means that Lincoln and York can now boast having one of the fastest coffee packing lines in Europe. The innovation automates the packing process for retail clients, meaning coffee can go from green bean to being shelf-ready in less than an hour, increasing the business’s capacity to serve its retail clients, as well as be an investment and a positive indication of the longer-term growth potential in the retail coffee market.
26 CAFÉ LIFE | APRIL 2021
BREXIT PROBLEMS AND/OR OPPORTUNITIES TO BE HAD? The Brexit difficulties are still there, they haven’t gone away, but I’m optimistic. Our own experience is that goods are taking twice as long as normal to move in and out of the UK, but particularly out, and it’s costing 50% more, so it’s a real issue, and it’s not going away any time soon. It’s settled down, but it’s not frictionless by any means. Moving through the French ports, particularly, is very difficult. It’s childish really, and Brexit or not, none of this needs to happen - the issues that are going on at ports - because they’re so petty (taking their time, being pedantic with paperwork, for example). They call it paperwork, but a lot of it is supposed to be digitised, but it isn’t. It’s a hybrid of paper and forms. You might have 10 forms, and get nine right, and they’ll pull you up for comma on one of them… Things are smoothing out, but I think the issues are permanent for a while, until the politicians tell everyone to stop messing about! As a business, we are set up better than most to do it. We’ve heard all the stories of people setting up businesses at home, exporting whatever, and of course, they’ve never had to worry
