Our Partnership with Caffe Praego

Background

Who are Caffe Praego?

Caffe Praego was founded in 2011 as a way for founder Charles Trace to merge his passions for coffee and philanthropy. Having worked in the beverage industry for many years, and founding The Point Foundation, a charitable organisation set up to support the needs of children living in poverty in Rwanda, Charles decided to bring his two areas of expertise into one place. And so, the company was born – an ethical coffee supplier designed to provide amazing coffee while giving back to communities in African nations.

As a business, Caffe Praego focus on providing speciality coffee that tastes great, while supporting farmers and creating lasting change. They work closely with The Point Foundation, and with the coffee farms across Rwanda where they source from.

Donating around £3 million a year from their coffee sales to The Point Foundation, Caffe Praego needed a coffee specifically for them, sourced entirely from Rwanda to align with their ethical goals and company culture.

While they had worked with a large private label coffee roaster for over 20 years, Caffe Praego were looking for a closer relationship with their roaster. Something to build strong partnerships on, as well as increased traceability and stability in their supply chain and a more stable service.

The Ringtons Mission

Taste profile and flavours have always been just as important to Caffe Praego as their sustainability goals and charity work. That’s why they spend each year exploring Rwanda to find hidden gems and green coffee beans – to provide the best speciality coffee, without compromising on social impact or price.

When Caffe Praego approached us, they were looking for a blend analysis of their current taste. They wanted a better quality coffee for the same price as their previous supplier, all focused on the delivering the dark roast and body of the beans they’d already been using.

On top of that, there needed to be solid infrastructure to support the 82,000kg of roasted coffee their main product sells. And the goal to improve traceability from 8% to 30% throughout their supply chain added an extra layer of considerations – this coffee needed to be the best, and it needed to be supported across the whole process to ensure no quality was lost.

Our mission, which we were pleased to accept, meant was to help them find a coffee supplier with traceability throughout the whole process, with great taste, affordability and a strong focus on giving back to its workers and communities.

Our work with Caffe Praego

The first step when engaging with Caffe Praego was to provide a detailed blend analysis of their three key components. Looking at the commercial grade, speciality grade and Robusta coffee they supply, we assessed the aroma, taste characteristics, body, balance and mouthfeel of each product to get a real feel for it. This meant we could match the blend profiles and look out for improvements that could be made to highlight certain characteristics of the coffee.

As with all our blend analyses, we then used these results to propose two different supply chain options that could provide quality, consistency and traceability.

Each supplier was reviewed and documented for Caffe Praego to review, and we made sure to consider not only their supply capability, but their social impact on Rwanda too. By ensuring we considered the ethical impacts of the coffee production line, we were able to find suppliers that not only produced the right volumes, but also did it in a sustainable, socially responsible way, meaning that Caffe Praego’s ethos was upheld throughout.

Going the extra mile

For such an important social mission, we knew there was more we could do to ensure the information we were providing was right for the customer. When the opportunity arose to visit some of the suppliers out in Rwanda, we were unable to turn it down. You can read all about our sourcing trip to Rwanda on our blog.

Ultimately, by visiting the suppliers while they were hard at work, we were able to visualise the whole process and quality check the procedures. Not only did this allow us to make stronger recommendations, we were also able to taste the coffee at its source. You can’t get much fresher than that!

While in Rwanda, we were also able to visit some of the charity projects that The Point Foundation and the suppliers were engaging with. Seeing the work that was being done to support young people, children with disabilities, coffee farmers and women across Rwanda further demonstrated the importance of getting things right for Caffe Praego. The rewarding sense of choosing a supplier that was doing good across the country was better than anything else.

First, we need to fill our silos with green coffee across 12 different tanks. Now, it’s time to select the perfect roast. Our automated roaster will pull the exact percentage and kilo of each bean in, ensuring the right blend of coffee without mistakes or timely manual measuring and weighing. Within 12-15 minutes, our roast is done!

Having followed a specific profile to achieve the colour target, the roast is then deposited into our cooling tray. Within 5 minutes, it’s cooled and dropped into our destoner. This step ensures you don’t find any nasty stones or seeds in your coffee – pretty important if you ask us.

Lastly, we decant our beans into hoppers, and if required, we run them through a grinder before moving them into a degassing silo. Degassing can take around 48 hours, meaning the whole process of producing coffee for your brew takes just a little over 2 days.

Then we bag it, and it’s ready to go to our customers, and to your doorstep – or local coffee shop.

The Ringtons Difference

There’s plenty of coffee roasters and producers out there. Any supermarket or corner store will show you an array of different brands in colourful packaging. But at Ringtons, we believe in giving our coffee real love, care and attention to make sure our customers get the best quality – no exceptions. With seasonal sourcing of coffee through to batch roasting on demand, all our coffee is as fresh as it can be. There’s no big warehouse storage here!

We’re also BRC accredited, and all our coffee is Speciality graded, meaning we’re providing tasty coffee safely and efficiently.

To do this, we work closely with a Quality Grader and have stringent processes for our production.

Quality graders

Our Q-Graders score and green grade samples of our coffee, from pre-shipment to arrival, and record these scores for us to keep an eye on the consistency of our production at all times. We also conduct quality checks every hour. This includes checking oxygen levels, making sure O2 readings are low enough to pass the high bar we hold, and water bath tests to check our packs are sturdy and strong.

We even do a final cupping test where we taste a minimum of two samples from each production run of coffee, meaning we’ll catch any faulty roasts before they leave the factory.

Suppliers

Our suppliers are also held to an extensive set of criteria for the green beans they provide, and we check samples of beans to make sure everything is kept to the high standard we expect for all our customers.

We take moisture and water activity readings of every green coffee sample we buy, as well as on delivery from supplier to our factory. This means we can be sure all our green coffee has been stored safely and securely, and won’t compromise any roasts.

Machinery

Our roaster is programmed to follow specific roast profiles. We set colour targets, with a small tolerance of +/- 3 colour points, and we record every roast’s colour. By doing this, we ensure consistency of our coffee. Every Ringtons blend should be as good as the last. Our roast profiles also ensure an optimum taste and roast height, so you can be certain that your next cup of coffee will be as good as your first.

Each roast follows the same automated steps, meaning every coffee bean is roasted for the same length of time, at the same temperature, and the same amount of beans are used. Every single time.

And to top it off, we keep a sample library of finished products, so we can always have a point of comparison.

Everything at the Ringtons factory is set up to ensure our coffee is as consistent as possible. Consistently delicious, consistently processed and consistently the best quality we can offer.

Delivering our coffee

When our coffee leaves us, we send it off with an extra tight cuddle and a spare pair of socks. Not really – but we do treat it as an extension of ourselves, no matter where it’s off to.

Because we believe in sustainability across the whole coffee making process, we are committed to finding solutions that allow all our packaging to be recyclable at home. After all, we need to give back to the earth that’s giving us all the beans we need.

On top of this, we recently reduced all of our carbon emissions by 301 tonnes. We then offset our remaining carbon emissions by supporting projects in Kenya and Brazil, while we search for a more long-term solution.

When it comes to actually delivering, we use green energy and electric vehicles to bring our coffee to the doors of our customers. And we suggest using reusable cups in our customers’ cafes, or recycling takeaway cups.

Caffe Praego’s perspective

Caffe Praego were looking for high quality coffee with reliable service. So, did they find it?

“Working with Ringtons, we were most impressed by their attention to detail in all areas of the process. From orders and sales support, to meeting their Q-Grader in Rwanda to help buy our beans, they were really involved from start to finish.

We were also really impressed by the Ringtons story, and we’re looking forward to continuing our journey of providing great coffee with a meaningful purpose.”

Working with Ringtons

Want your own success story? If you’re exploring finding a Private Label coffee roaster, we can help and we’d love to be involved in your journey. Get in touch with us today.