Concluding our series of profiles on six B Corp certified coffee businesses, we speak to Tim Wookey, Founder and Managing Director of Amamus – a B2B specialty coffee supplier based in the UK. Here, Wookey discusses the importance of creating a joyful coffee experience across the supply chain and shares how the B Corp framework will help their business recover post-Covid
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Tim Wookey, Founder and Managing Director of Amamus who formalised its B Corp application during lockdown in 2020 | Image credit: Amamus
Amamus
B2B coffee supplier: UK
First B Corp certified: 2020
Current B Corp score: 83.1
We first looked into B Corp certification in around Autumn 2019 and were really excited about how the framework aligned with our company values. Many of our competitors in the corporate space promote environmental and social initiatives, but we feel much of it does not ring true. I wanted to differentiate our business with a bold third-party accreditation to confirm the positive impact we are having on coffee producers and our customers.
We talk about creating joyful coffee experiences across the coffee supply chain – from growers to roasters and consumers. But we want to go much further than just paying a decent price for coffee. We want to thoughtfully source and create more direct trade arrangements, such as in Guatemala where we’ve been working with several women cooperatives.
“We now have a really strong framework for growth as we recover from the pandemic”
Coffee growers at origin are terribly under-represented and one of the many things I’ve learned is that most farmers would really like to know where their coffee ends up. It gives them an immense source of pride to know their coffee is being enjoyed in the offices of a large law firm in London. These are the kinds of stories we like to bring to life to show that coffee can be a force for good.
Initially it felt like certification was orientated towards larger businesses, and with ours being a small team, the audit process seemed too large an undertaking at first. Then the coronavirus lockdown happened and we were granted the luxury of time to gather our evidence and write the policies we needed to formalise.
As a result, we’ve learned so much through examining our business through the lens of ethical and environmental issues, ethnicity and gender equality and how to tackle modern slavery. Having those processes in place means that we now have a really strong business framework for growth as we recover from the pandemic, which we never would have had if it were not for the B Corp process.
This article was first published in Issue 5 of 5THWAVE magazine
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