Season 3, Episode 92 : Tim Wookey

Amamus | Food and Beverage | July 6, 2020 | 36:14

The Story

Tim Wookey is the co-founder and Managing Director of Amamus. As his business name tells ‘we love’ in Latin, Tim and his team are passionate about beautiful coffee. The company supplies specialty coffee to like-minded businesses setting new standards in quality, service and taste. Their ambition is to be innovative and disruptive within the coffee sector with the ultimate purpose of making moments more meaningful. 

Highlights of Tim Wookey

  • Tim studied product design at the university in Salford. His final project was a coffee machine. 
  • After running a marketing agency in London for years, he had an amazing tasting experience with Blue Mountain coffee which made him consider starting a coffee business.
  • Amamus means ‘we love’ in Latin, a business name that was chosen as a Genesis of the lovely stories behind coffee and the joyful experience of drinking specialty coffee in the workplace.
  • They supplied specialty coffee from farmers to like-minded companies.
  • They are a B Corp certified.
  • People can buy specialty coffee in the supermarket which is usually marked up as such.
  • Their knowledge is their business superpower as they understand all of the components that come together to make great coffee in the workspace.
  • Connect with Tim on Instagram.

“The best place to go is your local roaster. […] These are the sorts of coffees that we all should be investing into kind of create a benefit out of farm level, as well as a joyful experience when you’re drinking your coffee. You know, that’s why we see this as a win-win”.

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Transcript

Will Richardson 00:09
Well, welcome to the green element podcast. Tim, thank you so much for joining us today. I am looking forward to finding out more about coffee and specialty coffee and more about the journey that we potentially go on while drinking coffee. And could you tell us a bit more about the name us and where you come from what you're doing.

Tim Wookey 00:30
Okay, well yeah, thanks for having me on. I think the first question that most people asked me is why have we got such a silly name for our business and it retrospectively it is a bit but it but it actually means we love in Latin, and that's really where the Genesis came from, you know what I fell in love with the stories behind specialty coffee and I didn't think they were being particularly well told. So, we wanted to create a business that brought those stories to the to the fore and created, I suppose a more joyful experience around drinking coffee in the workplace.

Will Richardson 01:04
Interesting, interesting. And so, do you find that people want that want to find out more about coffee when they start talking to you? And does that? Is that how they end up talking to you?

Tim Wookey 01:18
Yeah, I think we're really lucky. I mean, if I was selling ethical toilet rolls, I think it'd be harder to get the conversation going. But most people seem to enjoy coffee and even if they don't like drinking coffee, there's some interesting coffee is easy. It's a newsworthy, interesting subject. So, I think we're really lucky because it's not difficult to open up conversations with people around coffee. What is more difficult to discuss around coffee is the I suppose the dark backstory around coffee and the majority of coffee that's sold and that's, I suppose what really what we're trying to get involved in trying to support the growers because the truth is, is the majority of farmers around the world are growing coffee that's going into the commodity supply chain. And that coffee, the price that a farmer can achieve for that coffee is only linked to supply and demand on the New York Stock Exchange. So, they're often paid, I don't know what today's at sea prices, but the sea prices are locked on the stock exchange. So, the farmer often receives less revenue for his crop and then it's cost him to grow it. And that's a growing problem now. And it's compounded by climate change. So yields for farmers are often down that cause leaf rust is a terrible problem, which is a disease that affects coffee plants and reduces yields, changing weather patterns, storms, all of that is reducing farmers yields and on the basis that the price they can achieve per pound of coffee is locked to supply and demand that it kind of that they're unable to earn a sustainable income out of their farms. So, what we're seeing is we're corners have been cut environmentally and socially People are walking off coffee farms that they've been farming for generations. So, it's a sad backstory but we've what we found was a shining light within the sector, which was the specialty sector is specialty is American specialty. And our, were a member of an organisation called the specialty coffee Association so often get muddled up because it sounds like I'm pronouncing it wrong, but it's sort of specialty coffee. That that is a particular grade of coffee that's different to commodity grade coffee, in that it is achieved a particular score in terms of sort of objective Standards and Quality. So, what I mean by that is that the coffee that's been farmed has got very few defects in it. It's a certain moisture content. It's all at a particular screen size. So objectively looking at that harvested coffee, it meets standards. That coffees then cups by professionals who are called cue graders, and they, they evaluate the coffee from a sort of a taste and aroma, a more sensory perspective. And then they're able to allocate a score to that coffee in terms of how it how it tastes. So what that means is that a, what if the coffee achieves over 80 points out of 100, it can be graded as a specialty grade coffee, which moves it straight out to the sort of commodity tub, and then it moves into a more sort of auction style arrangement where people are prepared to pay for that coffee, traders and importers and exporters, are prepared to pay an awful lot more for that coffee because it meets higher high standards that people are prepared to roast as it prepares to pay more around the world. So what we're trying to do is, is encourage more people to seek out, use, purchase, drink, specialty great coffee and avoid as much as possible the commodity great coffee because whilst many farmers are unable to access specialty grade coffee or create specialty grade coffee is simply because it's insufficient education at a farm level of how to grow good quality coffee. If people realise that the yields are there and demands growing, there'll be more support to get more farmers into growing kind of specialty grade coffee. So, the way we look at it is that the commodity grade coffee is a sort of vicious circle, where farmers are receiving in sufficient revenues for that crop. They're then unable to invest in the farm, unable to invest in education, unable to invest in environmental initiatives. Whereas looking at the other way, specialty grade coffee, there's more money coming in through that there's more education. So you create this virtuous circle where communities can flourish around specialty grade coffee, and of course, there's still going to be environmental challenges, but if there's some there's a bit more cash at a farm level, they can invest in ways of avoiding coming some of those challenges, you know, looking at different root stocks for their coffee plants, but it does that money, they can't do that they just happen to exist. So, that's really what we're trying to do is improve the kind of penetration of specialty grade coffee and our space for that as a high level purpose but our particular spaces generally around the workplace offices, that type of thing.

Will 06:24
Okay, and where would a lay person be able to buy specialty coffee? specialty coffee, would you? I mean, can you buy it from a supermarket or do you have to go to particular people to buy it like yourselves or...

Tim 06:38
you can buy in the supermarket is usually marked up as such. It was a specialty great, great coffee on there. And it will come with a lot of information, usually an altitude, it will certainly come with a court with the cooperative or the farm information. It would have come from a it will have transparency associated with that with that coffee. So that's really what you're what you're looking for the best place to go in my view is your local roaster. If you go down find your local roaster, you can ask them if what they're distributing specialty great coffee. And if they are, then they will give you all the support and advice you need around the coffee where it's coming from. And often they'll know what sorts of social initiatives are happening on the ground. We've had some coffees where that we you know, where we know that the farm level, there's the schools and crushes for kids. So, when laborers are on the farm, they know that kids get an education. These are the sorts of coffees that we all should be investing into kind of create a benefit out of farm level, as well as a joyful experience when you're drinking your coffee. You know, that's why we see this as a win-win. We need to create a better fairer distribution of value across you know, the down supply chain, and we need to create better experiences when people drink coffee because awful coffees still rife in the UK.

Will 07:55
So, what so understanding and not understanding all of that, that you've just said, what would you say your purpose is, as an organisation?

Tim 08:06
We try our purpose is to, is to improve, what is better, better, better coffee for better business in that city in its simplest area, and we mean that at every single level. So, we work with great independent roasters, you know, we want to provide them with additional volume, we want to buy, we only buy coffee, that specialty grades create better business for the farmers. We want to work with firms where when we drop in a coffee, it's got a great backstory and it's got real character, that it creates a better experience for them that they can share with their either their team, their employees or their prospects. And people can get excited and feel that this firm has got, you know, it gives consideration to the way it buys things the way it does business. So, it's a better a better organisation that effectively a marketing activity, not to put it very crudely but we think the better coffee you can create better business around. So that is our that is our purpose.

Will 09:05
What do you say your business superpower was?

Tim 09:08
Ours, our knowledge, our knowledge, for sure. We don't roast coffee ourselves. I'm not going to roast coffee, but I don't roast coffee. We don't make coffee machines. I don't distribute tea. I don't serve as coffee machines. We've got this most incredible network that we've invested really, really heavily and we go to all the trade shows all my trade shows, I spent a lot of time meeting people who I hope will be brilliant. And if they are, we bring them into our network and then that networks, what's available to our clients. So, I don't race coffee, I don't service machines, any of that stuff. But I understand all of the components that come together to make great coffee in a workspace. And that's our secret power been able to a client come to me and say Tim, how do we improve the coffee and our meeting rooms people are saying it's a bit better. I can Listen to them understand how they use coffee, and then put together a really tight proposal for them that says, you know, this is how I believe you can, you can do it. And you know what, here's a great coffee that comes from a great farm in Guatemala, for example, that women have always when we're using a lot, which is eight ladies, Guatemalan ladies who all farm and abort their crops together. That's a great story for you know, firms carry forward, we can put that complete solution together. And it's our knowledge that allows us to do that. So, I'm, I'm not an expert in anything, but I'm a generalist across the whole lot and pull that together for the benefit of our clients.

Will 10:39
It's been really interesting following your stories on LinkedIn and talking to people. One of the things that I remember reading watching fairly recently was the decaffeinated coffee and saying that, actually, it's a myth that decaffeinated coffee is rubbish. You can get very good quality decaffeinated coffee, which I thought was really interesting because I definitely fell into the camp of on a drink decaf coffee because it's rubbish

Tim 11:11
That you know that some have their shortfalls, but again, well you probably saw that I got that wrong. I know a bit about decaf coffee, but I didn't get it quite right on LinkedIn and one of the guys who I met out in Annecy when I was at a roasters conference out there. He called me on it and said, Look, thanks for thanks for being positive about decaf coffee, but you didn't get exactly right. So, I was like, Whoa, okay, cool. Let's get you on. And why don't you explain to everybody and this is what I mean about our knowledge. You know, I only started in this year ago, but my goodness me I've been busy building a network and learning about everything I need to know. So, when a client says to me, Tim, what do we do about this? I can answer that question. And if we can't answer the question, I know exactly who to go to get an answer. Because a lot of people I mean, think what we do differently is we sit between there's a lot of companies who are very good at putting machines in offices and servicing those machines and looking after those machines and taking money off clients for footwear and cheese, and they don't really care what coffee goes through those machines. There's a lot of companies that do that. There's also a lot of companies who are incredible roasters, they're buying beautiful coffee, especially to grey with lovely stories, very ethically and socially kind of conscious. But they're not interested in beans, cup machine and an office or how to put tasting cards how to create bespoke tasting cards for a client that can sit on their boardroom table. So, we were trying to fill that middle space there where we can put, we care about beats cut machines, we understand exactly how they work. We've got engineers who can look after them. We can put them on the table, but we will also run great coffee through. Now it won't be as good as probably throw a beans cup machine as you might get in a very, very top sort of specialty coffee shop with a barista in there, but it's going to be one hell of a lot better than you could get if you weren't using specialty great coffee and the fact that you can have tasting cards, the explanation, the whole story brought to life, the farmer sort of center stage on the boardroom table is great. And so far, as I know, as I was really doing with that with the sort of similar level of focus that we'll

Will 13:15
See, I mean, you just mentioned that you've been doing this for just over a year or a year. What were you doing before this, that and what triggered you to get into coffee?

Tim 13:27
Yeah, um, well, let's go right back. I studied product design in university up in Salford. And my final year project was a was a coffee machine that I designed so I don't really know where it came from back there, but I still find it a bit bizarre because I certainly wasn't drinking great coffee at university, but I designed a coffee machine is my final year project. So, my interest was clearly there. Early on after I left school, and then fast forward, I was running a marketing agency in London and we sold it. And I started to develop this idea of this coffee idea which came from me being sat in my kitchen just after my birthday. My wife had bought me some 250 grams of to make Blue Mountain coffee, probably from Harrods or something because she knew I enjoyed my coffee. And it purposed to be the best coffee in the world. And I sat down I ground this coffee, just got a new grinder as well. And I sat there, I drank it and I was transported away. It was just the most amazing taste experience. It was soft, silky, mouthfeel, just really mellow. It was it was beautiful, and pretty kid so I was really able to enjoy that experience. So that sets How can the coffee taste is good. How can it taste this is different to other coffees that are drunk? So I started to read about it and I understood that there's a persistent blue mist, which is why they're called the Blue Mountains and it sits over the over the mountain it slows the ripening process by up to 25%. Every single bean is sorted by Hands, make sure any defects are removed, you know that it's the terroir and the climate is perfect for growing coffee trees. And I thought, what a credible story and no one's really telling the story very well. I think we could do it better. So, I started to develop a coffee business. So, if you look, our business was incorporated back in 2011. But then, I got offered a job. And I just had kids then and I thought, I'm going to take the safe option and take a job sigh. I was marketing director for quite a firm down on the south coast while I'm still located now down in Livingston. So um, I did that for eight years. But the idea never went away. My wife said, I'd like to start working again now. So, she, so I said, well, we've got Coffee Company Incorporated. Why don't you start that, and she looked at it and said, l ok, we could do something around expensive, luxurious coffee, or we could supply good quality specialty grade coffee into businesses. So, she started with a couple of clients and ran out and took over for a few years. So, we have been trading for maybe four years. Then I was looking at this business and I thought time's right for this, you know, people are looking for more ethical ways of doing business. They're looking for more stories around what they're buying. And I think we can connect this with sort of how new businesses are coming through. And so I just I thought, right, and I wanted to do my thing, and I was getting fed up with being employed and all the other stuff that I'm sure every other entrepreneur kind of feels, and I just quit. So, I quit a very good job and we gather together our own money. And we got one investor who's our chairman who works, he invested a bit and here we are, so April was when I came in full time last year, April 19. So before fasting forward a year, we've learned a hell of a lot. We've got an awful lot wrong, but we know we're going in the right direction and really enjoying.

Will 16:47
Brilliant, brilliant. So, it is funny, that whole university thing isn't it the way that one of my best mates, Ted's he did his thesis at university on to the EU in trading, and he ended up as an accountant. And he literally we did Hospitality Management, so nothing like it. I did my thesis on how people perceive the effect they have on the environment whilst partaking in sports within the candle region. I'm now running a couple of environmental companies in Scotland's and if I'm kind of weird, and I know and you the fact that you designed a coffee, you know, a coffee machine when you weren't in I wasn't into the environment. He certainly wasn't into numbers we off. We went off to Canada and went skiing and just bummed around for years. And it's just, I don't know, you, there must be that thing inside you that when you're young, you don't even know or recognise it at that point. But you would have been interested in coffee at that point. And you maybe didn't even know about it.

Tim 17:55
Yeah, so perhaps our paths are set quite early. Yeah. Remember, if we go back even further, I think it's really an idea that when you are sort of carefree and you've got a very open mind as you do around that, at that time that you know, the maybe we do show, the show without realising perhaps the path, our path of intention that stays before we get gobbled up by where we're being pushed and where we end up geographically all those other things that we know influences through those kind of early years of employment. And then but never goes away. And certainly I always wanted to run my own business and I've been employed for what seems like forever and it was a breath of fresh air it is being able to you know, we can tell, you know, we look we've got the freedom to work with people who we want to work with, and we know we've not we've chosen not to work with particular people on a few occasions and I hope I don't live to regret that. But we don't want to we want to work with like-minded people and I think you're positioning yourself around being effective, sustainability agenda and doing things for the right reasons, you know, we're both be called satisfied. If you connect immediately with other people who have got that that shared vision for the world in which we live, those who don't have it, probably will never have it by this point, and then probably not the right people to work with, but where that lives inside you that that desire to do things better. It burns quite strong, I think.
19:26
Yeah, I think it probably does. So, I've always thought and it's, I just found it really interesting. You said the same thing, as I've seen, as you know, there must be there must be some kind of research that's done on that kind of stuff.
19:39
I was going to create guidance and to stand outside the graduation ceremony and say, Well, did you do your job.

Will 19:48
Or just get just go walk around the unions when the students are really drunk, and then ask them what their real drive is, what they were planning and then and then write it down and then email them go by the way, this is what you I'm not doing in later life. One of the questions I actually do have is why you decided to become a B Corp? That kind of thing. Almost answered that through the drive.

Tim 20:15
If I could name check here actually this guy who we both know Russ Avery who he was talking to him on email, he, he made some good points around greenwashing. And I think people are always skeptical. If you say, look, we've got sustainability agenda. And we've got a business and we're a for profit business. People can be quite skeptical about what that means. And you know, there's more and more surprise around greenwashing. I think it's absolutely fair enough. And Russ had mentioned that, and I thought, he said, you know, if you're serious, you should consider B Corp. And that was the conversation. I went away and one night like Google, because I've never heard of it before. And I read it and I thought, Wow, wow, that that is who we are. And I'd love to be part of that. But that looks like a dream. You know, that'll be something for quite a few years’ time where we've got time and the money and the resources to be able to go through accreditation. And then and then what happened was I gauge it, we did the questionnaire, which to us, and we went through and we met the grade and we thought, well, we'll just kind of park that for now. And then all our clients slam their doors on the 23rd of March this year, you know, because of COVID. And we have a couple of days where we thought What the hell are, we going to do now? You know, we put all our eggs in the supplying the kind of corporate market the office space, as opposed to selling direct to customer. Well, we're going to do? And I said, you know, we're going to do we're going to get B Corp certification, we're going to go for it and I just committed all our time and energy to the certification process and the stars aligned because there was an accreditation slot that came up at just the point, I'd completed all the groundwork that we needed to do and I didn't know what I've just got off a call actually Well, I've been talking to about 20 people or not before 20 businesses that are About to go into the accreditation process. So, it's like a q&a with me. And I was just explaining that the process and I said it was very Mercurial to start off with a read and understand what will be involved. But it seems to go into it. It was a brilliant experience, you know, the accreditation process was fantastic. analysts were great. communication was really good. But before it was, it was a bit a bit opaque. But we put in a lot of work at that stage. And then that paid off because the credits it took us four weeks to go through it because we've got everything ready. And I'm not particularly organised person but I just got a bit too in the teeth with this. And I was up till the early hours of the morning for you know, days and days on end, doing all the work that we need to do and we came out with a stronger, a lot stronger as a business not just because we've got accreditation, but the processes, all the things that we're living in our heads, the way we were running our business, the things we're doing, the way we were communicating and doing business. We all have that was in our heads and be called forced us to write it all down and document it and Get things, you know, get things done the right way. So, I think we came out of it a much stronger, we have come out with a much stronger, much more sounds were that grown up business because of going through the process. So, it was it was tremendous amount of value added going through that. And actually, I'm not a process person particularly. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed writing it. I thought, you know, I'm writing the business we are, and this is going to become even more important as we grow, and we get bigger.

Will 23:27
Yeah, it's interesting that growing and getting bigger because we've been going through the process a few times now. And I had at one point, kind of nominated a B Corp person to take us through. And I actually don't think that we should, and we've talked about it internally, because running an organisation and understanding what you have to do is great. You can say yes, we do that we do that. It's the questions that you go. No, we don't do that. Those are the questions that I then go. That's interesting. Why are we saying no to that? How can I say yes? And I think as you get a broader team at the top, I think that's when Yeah, it won't be me that's doing it because it won't be me that's driving the business. It'll be a group of us driving the business. But I think it should always be the senior, a senior, very senior person going through the court process, because it's wildly saying yes to that. What can we do to better to enable us for that? And it Yeah, and I think it does make you more grown up business because of that.

Tim 24:45
I agree. I think it's, um, you know, we paid the money for certification, but it's very cheap, if you consider what a consultant would have cost us to have got all that work. Anyway, around some of some of some of that. I think How we carry it forward and manage it. That's, that's the challenge for us. And I think that's where it's going to be. It's going to be interesting how we continue to evolve and grow within that framework. That's, that's the bit, but I think I think the money is well worth it at the beginning as a kickstart. But then I think there's going to be, we'll need some support for in the future as we as we go forward.

Will 25:23
Cool, brilliant. And so, can you tell us a bit about how you engage your you know, your customers with your mission and purpose? Like, what sort of messaging do you have and how do you get out there?

Tim 25:35
I'm not sure we've got it entirely right yet. I don't think I'm concise enough and explaining what we're doing. We were just talking before we came sort of on the microphone here. And I was saying we this morning, I've just done a long session on the why, you know, why do we do what we what we do? I think we're quite good at the how we got that a year ago and that's what we spend a lot of time we have spent a lot of time talking about how we do how we do how we roast coffee, how we saw specialty grade coffee, how we put great machines in but clients aren't interested in that. And so, I'll be very honest, sir, I think we've got a we've got to complete this bit of work. We started this next morning, really, which is taking a step back. And right now, we have got people certification. How do we engage? Not just with a certification, but the reasons we did before the things, we're just talking about how to connect that with prospects, say, you know what, we're probably the right coffee supplier for you, because this is what's important to us. And this is why we get up in the morning and do these things. And they probably resonate with you. And I don't think we're there yet. But the way I do at the moment, because I haven't got it really buttoned down is using platforms like LinkedIn. As you know, I do a lot on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, I enjoy LinkedIn I like because you can tell once you build a community of followers, you can tell your story over time and when it's a slightly more complicated story, like what we've got to try making complicated things in a good way to Have Tron meet with clients as much as much as they can and a networking events and things we talked about. And you can probably tell I'm very, very passionate about this. And I can get that across when I'm talking to people one to one or through LinkedIn, I find it very hard to do it through a website and pay per click campaign or anything like that. So how do we articulate our purpose, ideally, face to face? Where possible, and we just talk about the things that are important to us. And it's usually a stream of consciousness like I'm doing now, but it works, or it has worked, but I think we could be different.

Will 27:34
When it comes to running an ethical and sustainable business, what would you say your biggest struggle so far has been and can you tell us a bit about tell us a bit about how you've overcome it?

Tim 27:43
Well, we've got a massive elephant in the room. Being a coffee supplier in the coffee will never be grown in Europe or in the UK. So, we're always going to have a big sort of travel. We're going to have to ship goods around the world, which is Doesn't make anybody feel particularly good. I don't think that's one of our biggest challenges under the under the overlay is there's not a great deal we can do about that, how we can influence that. But what I did find out I, we started tracking our waste. I created an environmental impact report, and it's clunky, it's in Excel, but it documents every piece of waste that we've created. And what I found fascinating through doing that, was we learned that the co2 emissions produced to get coffee, on the assumption that all of it was coming from Brazil to the UK was less than moving that coffee from Essex, to Tilbury where the coffee usually comes into to Hampshire. And I found that fascinating, though, that there's where we can make a difference. You know, once you start to understand where you're having the biggest impact on the environment, you can start to make a difference and start to shift those numbers and we can't shift them all but some we will be able to and I think You know, we chatted A while ago about, you know, my carbon footprint and we need a better way excels no way to track your, your sort of, you know, your waste and I'm hoping that we'll be able to make use of, you know, your platform to improve our organisation. But I think he's trying to say our biggest challenge was to start off with very, very difficult to expect if we go back and track all the waste that we produce in every courier that we send out every ream of a4 paper that goes through our printer, all of that, but we've done it now. And we just need a better way to pull that information together and see where we can have a positive impact. But I got to say again, you know, when you're shipping coffee around the world, that's the biggest challenge we've got, but it can't go away. It won't go. Well fortunately for us, we choose not to drink coffee and that's not a good message for me but out there.

Will 29:46
Well, I'd love to look at your figures for that with the bringing the coffee from Brazil and the road travel. Because I I'm with you. I'm kind of like that Sachi quite unbelieve it would be quite interesting. Just have a look around there, verify it as well.

Tim 30:05
I use the I use the government was that the government metrics or whatever they publish once a year, I think in August, don't they? That's it. Yeah. conversion factors. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's what we use. So, it may not be right. But the point is that we're on that journey now of trying to understand more about what we do, which is probably as I'm sure you find, in your experience, we're probably a long way ahead of most people, just because we've started the process and we, we can get better and we can improve, I mean, this year, people say, Well, what are you going to reduce when I've got no idea what we're going to reduce the way we think everything we can is obvious, but this year is about benchmarking, understand what we're using, and then we can start to say, Okay, well let these are the things that can actually improve on and reduce those but obviously, with all the usual stuff like well, you know, green energy and solar panels and recycled paper, all that reduce commuting and zoom is going to be great. Now it's a great penetration resume. But people were comfortable with it. I spent it all to massively reduce our mileage. So prospecting mileage all our board reads meetings run over zoom, we're mostly so there's lots of the obvious things we've got ticked off, but it's now we go on to the next stage of how we really improve and make difference.

Will 31:16
Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah, I think I think that is and that that behaviour change part is going to be a big part of it to stop us from travelling to some because both you and I have to go to prospect meetings. And it's just nice to know that you probably don't need to go to as many in the future. Because

Tim 31:36
Let's, let's look at it another way around, let's qualify out before we go. And then if there's if they're not saying they, if they're still saying come and see me probably on a basis, they'll be a client and that's a that's a that's a that's a meeting worth travelling because if they become a client, we're making an improvement in the way someone's buying coffee. So, you know, yeah, let's hop in the car.

Will 31:55
Right. What is that one piece of advice you could offer our listeners to help them with their purpose and what would that be?

Tim 32:03
Oh, I saw you. I saw that question. You sort of said that beforehand that I struggle with it because it just lives it lives within me. And it came out when the time was right for it to come out. And I prepared to sort of take the take the plunge, but I think that'll be different for everyone. But go with your heart. Definitely. Go, go. Just go. Yeah, I think you'll feel it, if you've got that, that that put that purpose. And for me, it was just a number of things coming together Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, I designed a coffee machine back in university. Kids were old enough to make take a big risk and start my own business. My wife was caught it. They all came together at the same time. We said right, let's do this thing. Let's make it happen. Let's, let's go for it. And here we are, and I'm not regretting it for a minute.

Will 32:50
And we've kind of touched upon the environmental management and carbon foot printing aspect of your business. Is that something that is taken in consideration when running the organisation. And so, if you take tell us a bit about that.

Tim 33:07
Yeah, sure. I mean, it's kind of informs our decision making so a few clients have said to us, you know, GDT, we've always said, No, we're a Coffee Company. But it's clear that we should be doing tea, not least because it gives the client a single point of contact for ordering these things. So, we started to look for tea companies. And the first thing we did was looking at their kind of ethical credentials and their sustainability credentials do they have? Do they avoid entirely single use plastic? They think, right. Okay, you're on the lists of things. So, I think it makes decision making a bit easier when you can fill that in right up front in terms of how you work with people. So, the other great things we have, you know, an environmental standards questionnaire that we distribute now to new or new partners that we're looking towards suppliers that we're looking to work with. So I think is really helpful in terms of guiding how we make decisions and who we want to work with and clearly They are trying to see the courts wherever possible as well to work with because those are people that have shown a real big commitment by going through the accreditation process. The courts done the legwork for me in terms of saying that these people have got a sort of a purpose led agenda. So, yeah, I'd seek out equal partners too.

Will 34:21
Finally, what is there any advice or learning that you'd like to share with people listening on the podcast?

Tim 34:29
What around sort of sustainability? Well, I, well, my biggest learnings around just entrepreneurialism, I think People said 1000 times before me and I never really listened. Everyone said, everything's a lot more expensive and takes a lot longer than you ever think it will. And I was like, Yeah, well, it'll be fine. And then everything took a lot longer and everything was a lot more expensive than I ever thought it would be. And we made a lot of mistakes, as well. We made a lot of mistakes, but then you learn what people say you learn a lot more from the mistakes From the successes, so as long as you can stay in business and make enough mistakes to teach you what you need to know, then you can become a successful business. I think that's definitely true.

Will 35:10
Brilliant. Brilliant. Thanks so much, Tim. What's the best way that we can contact connect with you and learn more about who you are?

Tim 35:17
Yeah, LinkedIn probably. I mean, we've got a website, which is an Amamus coffee. That's our handle, like coffee at the end is.co.uk Amamus coffee, and I'm most active on LinkedIn under my own personal profile. So, if you just look up Tim Wookey, which is W key y, then you should be able to find me.

Will 35:38
Brilliant, and we'll be putting all of your social handles and everything on the website. And along with the podcast. Thanks so much.

Tim 35:46
That's it. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm a real pleasure. very honored to be on. Thank you.

Will 35:50
Great. It's really good to understand more about coffee and what you're doing

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