Blog
New machines make bulk order processing more efficient
It's an exciting time at the roastery as Mark has new toys and they're going to save loads of time when we're processing big orders.
Our (really) shiny new automatic weighing scale arrived this month and Mark's excited to be able to put it to use. It really reduced the time it took him to bag up the latest order for Jurang last week.
It came with an automatic loader. Sadly we haven't captured any footage of that bit in use yet but it's like a giant vacuum cleaner just for coffee. It sucks up the roasted coffee beans ready to drop them into the automatic scale, which in turn weighs them out into their bags. It can either load the beans from its own floor-standing hopper or from a separate container (which feels a bit like we're really doing the vacuuming).
And we've got an additional heat sealer to seal our bags which, along with the other additions, means we can now have two work stations operating at once to fulfil all your lovely orders.
This will be particularly useful when we have bulk orders to send out. Mark's looking forward to using them to their full potential.
Watch our video to see Mark putting together and the automatic scale:
Roasting coffee for a hat-wearing dog
It's been a busy couple of weeks in the roastery with some big orders going out and this one generated a lot of excitement - as well as hard work - for all the family.
Shiloh was chosen by coffee subscription curators Dog & Hat to showcase its roasting in the April deliveries sent out to customers. If you haven't come across the work of Dog & Hat before, they source coffees from roasters across the country and send out a selection each month to their subscribers, enabling them to go on a flavour-packed journey around the coffee-producing world and the roasteries of the United Kingdom.
Shiloh was one of four roasteries selected to feature in this month's subscription, alongside Steampunk Coffee Roasters, Carringtons Coffee Co and Doe & Fawn Coffee Roasters.
Mark first met the Dog & Hat team at Caffè Culture, the only dedicated trade event for the UK specialty coffee and cafe bar industries, in 2022 and subsequently sent them a sample he's roasted for them, which ultimately led to Shiloh being chosen to feature in a subscription delivery.
His contribution to this month's subscriptions featured 250g bags of Burundi Kibingo washed yeast coffee, alongside a Burundi decaf for those who enjoy their coffee without the caffeine. He's also produced a blend for Dog & Hat featuring coffee from Peru, Brazil and India. And, if that wasn't exciting enough, he's provided subscribers with a 30g Robusta coffee sample sourced from the South India Coffee Co too. That's a lot of coffee.
After a lot of hard work to roast, grind and bag all that coffee, and load it into the car with the help of the children, Mark was excited to travel from Whitehaven to York this week to deliver the order in person and make sure it arrived safely at its initial destination ready to be posted out individual subscribers.
Mark says: "It's an honour to be selected by Dog & Hat and to be able to showcase to a new audience some of the coffees from growers we work with around the world.
"We hope the subscribers enjoy our coffees and we look forward to hearing what feedback they have for us."
You can watch Mark working on fulfilling the order in this YouTube video:
The lowdown on April subscription coffees
Meet coffee farmer Faith
New labels launched to boost our customers' experience of our coffees
We're always looking for ways to make the coffee experience even better for our lovely customers. If you've had a delivery from us in the last few weeks, you might have noticed our newest development.
We've got new labels for our products which we hope will make it easier for you to find out the story behind your coffee, and restock when you need to.
Introducing four new products with savings galore
Diversification in the Wanjuki Estates
Visiting Kenya's Kipkelion Coffee Mill
Producing great quality coffee isn't complete when the beans have been grown and dried. There's a whole further stage where the beans must be graded, sorting them by quality to ensure that only the best beans end up in your specialty coffee.
Mark and Jean found out more about these processes during their visit to Kipkelion Coffee Mill in Kenya.