Ask the Roaster

Click the link to hear more from Head Roaster Stephen.

About

We are a speciality coffee company who believe that we can reduce re-offending in the UK through coffee.

At our roastery at HMYOI Aylesbury, we train young offenders in barista, coffee production, and roasting skills — as well as roasting incredible coffee for our 4 London coffee shops and our network of over 100 wholesale clients. We also run barista academies at 3 other prisons, namely HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Spring Hill and Bullingdon.

We source coffee from multiple origins and farms across the world to find the best lots available. We are able to source through direct trade, importers or collaborative importer partnerships. Whichever method we use, we have direct knowledge of the farms our coffees come from. All of them adhere to the strictest ethical principles.

The UK’s re-offending rates are amongst the highest in the western world, and it’s costly on both a national and personal level. 46% of prisoners in England and Wales go on to commit another crime within one year of being released. Re-offending costs the Treasury an estimated £4.5 billion every year (£131,000 for every re-offender). Only 36% of prisoners manage to find work within two years of being released. If prisoners do find employment, they are 50% less likely to return to prison.

There is always a job for a good barista or roaster. That’s why we are doing this.

We want to show the coffee community and the world that a positive commercial environment can be created behind bars and that exceptional speciality coffee can come from places and people you wouldn’t expect.

Dog and Hat

We love the many ways that coffee can be used for good and it's great to see so many coffee-related social enterprises emerging.

We're really happy to be able to showcase and support another great organisation in the form of Redemption Roasters.