Sustainability / Ethics

We are an Irish coffee roasting business. We have roasted coffees from producers that are genuinely world renowned and whose coffees are frequently used on both a national and international competition stage. We feel we have the quality side of coffee sorted but our business is about a lot more than just selling coffee for profit.

We are unique in how we are run. We give up 4% of all we earn before we make a cent. This has accounted for over 30% of our profits in each of the last two years Here’s the how and why.
We feel we have the quality side of coffee sorted but our business is about a lot more than just selling coffee for profit.

Our Staff

It is our belief that staff are fundamental to any business yet in today’s world many businesses appear to have leaned into the theory of more profits for the least amount of pay possible. We wish to be the opposite of this and so:
* All of our staff are paid well above industry rates
* All of our part timers are paid above the living wage
* All of our full time staff are part of a company pension scheme
* All of our full time staff receive full sick pay
* 1% of all our annual revenue is shared with staff on top of their salary/bonus

Women’s Aid

Many organisations in Ireland are doing incredible work for the most vulnerable in society. Since the day we first started to roast coffee we decided to give our support to Women’s Aid. We have done this by giving them a minimum of 1% of all the revenue we earn every year.

Building Bridges

A year after we began roasting we looked to see what we could do in addition to the 1% of all revenue we donate to Women’s Aid. We had a meeting at the roastery with Howard Barwick of Covoya. Covoya act as an exporter for our biggest supplier of coffee at the roastery which is the ASOPEP co-op in Colombia.
I’ve known Howard for a long time. He was a former competition barista, coffee roaster and all round very very decent human being. I asked him if there was anything we could do for the people of ASOPEP and he said yes there was. This is how our bridge building started and we’ve now completed four of them.
Monika, our Head of Quality took the opportunity to visit ASOPEP where she met with some amazing people and saw first hand some of the bridges we’ve funded. She came back with stories of the tangible benefits these structures have helped to bring such as making journeys to school for the children of the co-op safer along with easing the burden of coffee transportation. Below are some photos of before where one of our bridges was built and a video after its completion.

Local Projects

In 2024 in addition to the 2% of all revenue we give to good causes and the 1% to staff, we decided to add an additional .5%. We did this through a series of 4 local and international grants of €2,500 each. We've supported organisations such as The Solas Project, The Dublin Inquirer and our neigbours "Capital Strength" to help their athletes compete at international weight lifting competitions. In 2026, we have increased the value of these grants to €4,000 and they will be focused on organisations within Dublin 8

Coffee for Hospitals

We’re based in Dublin 8 and St. James’s is our local hospital within a short walk of the roastery. A number of staff at James’s have supported us since we began through buying our coffee. When Covid hit we decided to donate coffee to them on a weekly basis. It was a very small way to say thank you for all they do and we’ve done it every week since. In 2022 we added Crumlin Children’s Hospital to our weekly drop and now in 2023 we’ve also added The Coombe. This year we will donate three quarters of a tonne in total between the three

WCR Checkoff Program

As participants in the WCR Checkoff Program, we at Imbibe are proud that a portion of every green coffee purchase we make goes towards supporting advanced science for the future of coffee.

Sourcing

We pay above commodity and even fair trade pricing for all our coffees. In many instances many multiples above this. 

Our Organic certified house blend is Kaleidoscope, the marriage of Colombia ASOPEP (El Puente), and Peru Aprysa. We pay a soical premium on every pound of coffee we buy and this year we paid $8,500 between both co-ops. In addition to this we also pay both quality and organic premiums for these coffees.

We aim to build relationships with our producers and have been buying coffee from Asopep in Colombia since we first started roasting in 2018. Years ago we were made aware of infrastructure issues at the co-op at the beginning of our working relationship. After seeing images of the local children's dangerous river crossings to school each day we decided to donate 1% of every cent you spend with us in order to embark on a bridge building program. We have now funded four bridges at the co-op and have sent funding for a fifth. Our Q Grader, Monika has visited the co-op and saw first hand the tangible benefits these bridges have provided.

Throughout the years we have focused on building direct trade relationships with producers. We now source directly from several producers, including Pedro Moss from La Huella in Panama, Ashenafi Argaw of Ardent in Ethiopia and Paul Doyle of Mikava in Colombia. We also partner with An Post who collect and deliver parcels with electric vans.

Environmental Impact / Packaging

We've always been keen on genuine sustainability. Be it in the communities we've supported at origin or in Ireland. We're also very much aware of keeping waste to a minimum. 
For this reason the vast bulk of our coffee (90%), for wholesale partners is packed in zero waste cans. These cans are sent to customers, collected, cleaned and then sent back out. We've been doing this for many years now.Our retail coffee for those buying for their homes is packed in recyclable packaging which we source from our carbon neutral packaging supplier.

We use electric vehicles for all deliveries we do ourselves and use An Post as our transport partner for any coffee that is couriered as they too use electric vehicles.

Our coffee roaster is fitted with an after burner which breaks down volatile organic compounds and other pollutants released during roasting. This results in a dramatic decrease in visible smoke and odors and emissions.