Today’s coffee shop industry brings in £10.1 billion every year, with the market growing by 10% each year and expecting to reach £25 billion in 2025. First appearing in the 17th and 18th Century, coffeehouses were a popular place from people from different backgrounds to meet and gossip and partake in the latest trend – coffee. It wasn’t until the late 20th Century that coffeehouses took on a new life, being reimagined and popularised by companies like Costa Coffee and Starbucks (Historic UK 2017). In the UK 80% of us visit coffee shops weekly, and 61% visit daily. This growing demand for coffee shops, along with the current political climate surrounding sustainability, brings forward many ethical and environmental concerns within the industry. Issues such as plastic waste, ethical sourcing of coffee, keeping up with the current trend in plant-based food and many more trouble new businesses each year. I’m passionate about coffee and the culture surrounding it, with my life ambition being to open my own unique coffee shop that offers something new and exciting to the town or city surrounding it. Having grown up in a vegan, zero waste and zero plastic household, global warming and other worldly issues have been at the forefront of my mind for most of my life and going forward it will continue to be an important aspect of my life and my work. Creating a business that caters to your community and provides them with coffee and cake, while being mindful of the ever changing world around you is a challenge, and one that I would like to tackle. What is there to consider when accepting this challenge? There are two sides to all businesses; the customers, and the business itself. Both parties can make sustainable decisions that will impact each other, and over the next few posts I would like to take a look at what these decisions could be, and how they are being introduced into society. Who knows, maybe you’ll take on some of these changes to your coffee routine?
Millie Meg’s Coffee Shop 