The Interview: Jeremy Torz

Honesty drives us as a business, and glib marketing statements, whether from big multi-nationals or smaller players, drive me crazy. If you have an interest in a subject, it doesn’t take long to recognise when people are just giving you the marketing blurb and don’t have any depth of knowledge beneath that. We felt that by offering a premium quality coffee which was genuinely different from what had come before it, we really had to know our subject and also to educate our customers about what it was that got us so excited about it. The thing that defines us is our desire for integrity and knowledge, and a passion to share that with people who want to step into our world.

It’s very easy to come up with an idea and work on it for a year, only to find that it’s not doing too well and then start to erode the core philosophies that make you different. There’s a temptation to dilute your philosophies as the business grows, but hanging onto them is absolutely essential. Someone who comes across Union today doesn’t know how it’s evolved from when we began in 2001, but I want them to feel the same passion, commitment and truths there today – this means that we absolutely stand by the way in which we source and buy our coffees as well as the premium prices we pay to source them. We won’t dilute that model because it would destroy us. We’ve never said anything we can’t honestly back up – we’d never claim to do something that wasn’t true. We’re not saying that we’re changing the world, that would be ridiculous, but if we can have a beneficial impact on the communities in which we work it is amazing to see. As a business owner you want perfection and excellence, and you’ll come to learn that your work is a journey to that – it’s not something that comes immediately.

There’s still a disconnect between the knowledge we consume in the industry – whether it’s in a book or on a television show – and the understanding that our customers have of what we do. The media covers some trends and developments in food as entertainment, and sometimes the consumer will choose to seek out that experience for themselves. Despite all the talk in the media about boutique or third or fourth wave coffee, there are a lot of people out there who don’t know what that means and don’t know how to find a way into that world; the danger in the coffee shop movement at the moment is if we don’t bring the customer along with us to learn what we know, we’re going to lose them. It’s a case of making sure that all this interest in quality food and drink isn’t just a form of entertainment – we need people to participate. The UK business world is brilliant at spotting a trend, dressing it up and marketing the heck out of it before delivering a dumbed-down product which confuses the customer further. This is where we need to be honest as an industry, in how we talk to customers.

Full interview in the April issue of Speciality Food - download here