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We're doing our bit to make the world a better place, one coffee at a time
Waddesdon is leading the way in socially responsible sourcing by choosing Redemption Roasters, a prison-based coffee roastery, as our new coffee supplier.
Waddesdon Manor is partnering with a new coffee supplier, Redemption Roasters, to fuel the thousands of people who visit each year. Rather surprisingly, this speciality coffee company puts people at the forefront of their caffeine-based mission.
After being approached by the Ministry of Justice to help address the state of reoffending in the UK, Redemption Roasters now operate a roastery and barista training centre at Aylesbury Prison, training young offenders in professional roasting and competition-level barista skills. No more than ten trainees are taken on at one time, ensuring each is given the opportunity to develop universally recognised skills and qualifications that will help them find employment upon release. As Max Dubiel, one of Redemption’s founders explains, “as prison education workshops go, ours is one of the most exciting and delivers real skills which will help our trainees break the cycle of unemployment and reoffending.”
This social ethos, along with the fact that good coffee comes in close second on Redemption’s list of priorities, piqued our interest in the brand, and consequently the 80,000 cups sold from the Manor’s outlets each year will now contain Redemption’s Aylesbury blend of artisan coffee. Redemption coffee will also be served in Waddesdon’s boutique Five Arrows Hotel, and it’s award-winning restaurant.
Using ethically sourced coffee beans from Brazil, Colombia and Honduras, the signature blend features notes of cocoa, toasted nut and red berry, promising a rich, full-bodied taste. We’re are confident that the choice of coffee which both tastes good and does good will please the 450,000 visitors to Waddesdon each year; as Managing Director of Rothschild Waddesdon Limited, Sara Sweetland explains, “we are absolutely delighted to be working with Redemption, and are thrilled to offer our visitors delicious coffee that not only offers employment within the prison, but more importantly provides young offenders with an invaluable opportunity that isn’t always easy to come by”.
Inclusion and community support has long been a core value for Waddesdon, having already supported an ongoing scheme in partnership with Spring Hill Open Prison, which offers inmates an opportunity to gain invaluable new skills through work experience placements. In a somewhat poetic cycle of events, HMP Spring Hill has also recently become one the first prisons to house a Redemption barista training academy, and Redemption have ambitious plans to see expansion across as many of the 121 UK prisons as possible.