Our Story
At Old Spike, we're committed to ensuring everyone who comes through our doors leaves with a better story than the one they came in with. Whether that's by offering those affected by homelessness tangible ways to gain new skills and a job, or by serving a customer a delicious, socially conscious cup of coffee, we want to create meaningful social impact.
We began our journey in 2014 when we launched our cafe and roastery space at our very fist site on Peckham Rye. We were the first speciality coffee roastery operating as a social enterprise and have since been at the forefront of using coffee as a vehicle for social change. This model has served us well and we have since grown the business and now reside just round the corner at our state-of-the-art SCA Campus - still in Peckham!
We now serve a much wider network of companies and individuals and have partnered with our sister company, Change Please, to offer a full barista training academy to help support all traineess that come onto our programme.
Quality
We take pride in our approach to sourcing speciality grade green coffee from countries of origin based on the principles of direct trade, quality and seasonality. We ensure the coffees we serve are as fresh and seasonal as possible to showcase the wonderful diversity of flavours and aromas found in different coffees around the world.
In addition to our focus on direct trade and seasonality, we have a strong focus on quality. Higher quality means a better price for the farmer so it is very important that we continue to work with the producers that consistently supply us with high scoring coffees. This helps them secure a higher price which is often 4 - 5 times higher than the Fairtrade minimum.
Social Impact
As a social enterprise, Old Spike’s primary mission is to help reduce homelessness in the UK through training and employment within speciality coffee. Whether that's assisting our head roaster at our roastery or working in one of our cafes as a barista, Old Spike are committed to supporting our trainees from training to employment.
With 65% of the profits we generate going back to supporting our social mission, we rely entirely on traded income to meet our social objectives. In partnership with our sister organisation Change Please, we have launched a state of the art barista training academy to offer a bespoke, 8 week course which offers our trainees the following support:
- Practical and theory based learning
- Mental health support
- Work readiness training
- Financial assistance with accommodation
- Post training employment
Tree Planting
The demand for coffee is growing by 2% each year and it is estimated that global production will need to triple by 2050 to match demand. This will require up to 30 million hectares of land, which will force poorer farmers to grow their coffee in areas where some of the greatest stores of forest and biodiversity are found.
Although we ensure that all coffee we source is grown sustainably, this is not necessarily the case for the global coffee market and we thought it was time to do our bit to help.
Old Spike have therefore made a commitment to plant a tree for every bag of coffee that we sell through our partnership with the Eden Reforestation Project. Whether you are a wholesale customer or simply buying a bag online or in-store, you can now enjoy your coffee knowing not only is it responsibly sourced, it is also helping the planet.
