The daily grind

The daily grind

Coffee has been enjoyed by people for over a thousand years and is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. Coffee enthusiast and RGU alumnus Ross Erskine talks about his journey starting his coffee roasting and procurement company, Bennachie Coffee.

Bennachie Coffee is about bringing fantastic flavoured coffee to people, something fresh and something they probably haven’t tasted before.

I received support from Business Gateway while I was setting up my company and I got advice and guidance from them about a few different things. I certainly would recommend getting in touch with Business Gateway, they will assign you your own business advisor and from there they will be able to point you in the right direction. They help you through the little points in your journey.

I did face challenges when I was creating my company, one particular challenge concerned trademarks which led to a name change before we launched. The company was originally called Highland Coffee Hunter, but after speaking with an intellectual property lawyer at Business Gateway we found that a company named Coffee Hunter already existed. We spoke with the company and got a request through to change the name, so we did.

In five years’ time if I kept the original name and tried to trademark I could be challenged by this other company. I decided just to strip the branding back instead, it could have been seen as a negative thing but actually it was a positive experience. Since then I’ve just been focussing on the product and on increasing my own expertise in terms of my roasting skills.

I’m passionate about using ethically sourced coffee beans which support the communities and farms they come from. There’s many different projects around the world where you can support through procurement. I’ve been involved with various voluntary organisations and worked with different charities and I always wanted my work to encompass the whole thing, the business side, the charity side and helping people, giving them a hand up in life.

“I can see some great things that can be done in this world through coffee.”

It’s an important part of Bennachie Coffee’s ethos that the consumer knows which farm the beans are from and what it supports when buying them.

One of the coffees we have is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the coffee is called Rebuild Women’s Hope. In the Congo they don’t consider women to be able to support a family economically. A woman from the Congo has formed a cooperative of local women to help them support their families, feed their children and put them in school. In fact the woman that started the cooperative won the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award last year for the work she has been doing, and that’s something I want to support with the work I’m doing.

I can see some great things that can be done in this world through coffee. Whether that’s helping a consumer just enjoy their day a bit more, turning the daily grind into a coffee adventure, or discovering some amazing coffee flavours.