From partnering with Bob Marley’s family to supporting children in India - how Peterborough’s Masteroast is fuelling social change through coffee

The Fengate-based firm produces the award-winning Marley Coffee, a past winner of the Soil Association’s best organic coffee award.

Speaking ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight, which runs from February 22 to March 7, Masteroast managing director Andy Fawkes told the Peterborough Telegraph: “We now produce and distribute Marley Coffee throughout the whole of the EU, most of which is certified Fairtrade and organic.

“Marley Coffee is now selling very strongly in Europe, particularly in France, Holland and Poland, and is finding new fans in Germany and Scandanavia.”

Masteroast currently produces around one out of every seven cups of coffee consumed outside the home in the UK, Andy said, while also increasingly exporting both Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade coffees to places including the Middle East, Central America and the US.

Its support for Fairtrade ploughs between £3 million to £4 million a year into the hands of small farmers in areas such as central America, Africa and India every year, with some of its growers visiting Peterborough as part of reciprocal visits which were carried out pre-Covid.

“In recent years we’ve hosted farmers from Colombia, India and Nicaragua,” Andy added. 

“The growers put so much care into producing quality coffee that it’s important for them to see that it’s not all taken for granted at our level of the industry, and that we understand and appreciate quality and treat it with the respect that it deserves.

“We also had a little group of Costa Rican farmers who had never been out of Costa Rica who we treated to a cathedral visit and a chance to try the local beer and Stilton cheese. It was not to their taste but it made for a very entertaining evening!”

Masteroast also goes beyond Fairtrade, as Andy explained: “We choose to develop our own long term direct relationships with growers where possible and are also keen to support local social and ethical initiatives outside accredited schemes.

“The Fairtrade scheme is now well established and easy for the consumer to support, but as a company we go beyond that and have our own projects going on as well.

“We’ve helped establish supply chains in Rwanda which empower women to run and own cooperatives and manage their businesses in countries where traditionally men control the businesses, and we have supported direct initiatives in India - feeding school children in remote villages - and a UN recognised doctor in El Salvador who was working on malnutrition in infants.

“We donate to the One Tree Planted charity and, closer to home, have been a regular supporter of Peterborough Cathedral and local night shelter programmes.”

With Fairtrade now well-established, Masteroast is now focusing on sustainability which has grown in importance over recent years.

“We’re the only roaster in the UK that has catalytic carbon capture on its roasting equipment. We try to capture as much carbon as we can,” Andy said.

“We delivered the first certified plastic-free coffee packaging into mainstream retail last year with the Percol brand and are behind the revolution in coffee capsules in the UK using 100 per cent recyclable aluminium. We are now leading our customers towards recyclable materials for everything that we pack.

“We were a big influencer in getting momentum in the Fairtrade movement in the 90s and Noughties and now we are trying to lead the charge on the sustainability and environmental agenda.”