A COFFEE supplier has come up with seven winning brews.
Meltham-based Bolling Coffee’s Grumpy Mule brand won seven prizes in the Great Taste Awards run by the Guild of Fine Food – the most for any firm in the coffee category.
The success reflects the benefits of the company’s £200,000 investment in new machinery and marketing initiatives this year.
The company, which has 35 employees, won two-star gold awards for its coffees from Panama and Peru and one-star awards for others sourced from Rwanda, Tanzania, Colombia, and two from Ethiopia.
Company spokesman Damian Blackburn, said the awards recognised the firm’s long-lasting relationships with small farmers across the coffee growing world and its ethical stance..
“We have been buying coffees from some of these farms since Grumpy Mule was launched five years ago,” he said. “Others are new relationships forged on more recent visits to Tanzania and Panama.
“Production of these coffees supports many community initiatives including education, women’s welfare and environmental initiatives, proving Grumpy Mule’s ethos that great tasting coffee can also be a positive ethical choice.”
Grumpy Mule founder Ian Balmforth said: “Grumpy Mule celebrates its fifth anniversary this year and The Great Taste Awards have always been important to us. We are proud to have won more than 20 overall.”
He added: “We’ve always been committed to the idea of enabling UK coffee drinkers to enjoy truly great coffees and to promoting the farmers that produce them. The recognition of the Great Taste Awards is a real boost in enabling us to do just that.”
