CafePod is an independent coffee company, crafting high-quality, great-tasting coffee that’s exciting and easy to prepare at home. Our aim from the start has been to bring happiness to people’s everyday lives.
We’re proud to offer a huge variety of different coffee blends to suit every taste. We have 10 blends within our Nespresso® Compatible Pod range, including bestsellers Supercharger Espresso and Brunch Blend, a delicious decaf coffee and our recently launched range of flavoured coffees. We also offer four blends within our Ground Coffee and Whole Bean ranges.
We use unique coffees from around the world to create complex, harmonious, well-rounded drinks by carefully blending them. We’re known for the bold, intense flavour of our coffee that comes from a longer, darker roast. The coffee in our pods is Rainforest Alliance Certified and reflects our commitment to supporting sustainable farming.
We’re delighted to see that consumers seem to love our coffee, scoring us 4.9/5 on TrustPilot and it’s also fantastic to be recognised as a Great Taste Producer by the Guild of Fine Food.
Our coffee is available in most supermarkets and online retailers, as well as on our own website cafepod.com.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
I came up with the concept of CafePod when I was on an extended holiday. I was in Cape Town and realised that coffee had a completely different meaning than it did in the UK. Coffee was a way of life and provided more than just energy, but also a satisfaction and a moment of calm, thanks to the high-quality coffee being used. I spoke with two old work friends from the City who agreed with me and we decided that we wanted to bring this feeling over to the UK, so in 2011, we founded CafePod.
The goal of the brand has and always will be to refresh the objective and feeling of drinking coffee at home. We are simplifying the process of high-quality, homemade coffee and helping consumers have that café feeling in their own kitchen.
When we started the business, we realised there was a huge gap in the market for high-quality coffee pods that fitted with a wide variety of coffee machines. We created a unique formula, found the best coffee, and from there CafePod was formed.
I had never worked in the coffee industry before and it was definitely a big difference from my 100+ hour week in the City, but 11 years later, we are helping to change the world of coffee and helping consumers drink better quality more conveniently.
More from Interviews
- A Chat with Giorgia Granata, Co-Founder at Eco-Friendly Wet Wipe Company: Wype
- Meet Michael Jerlis, Founder and CEO of EMCD and TechRound Blockchain32 Judge
- A Chat with Jonathan Mark, Founding CEO at On-Demand Streaming Service: Begin
- A Chat with Bernardo Saraiva, Co-Founder and Director at World Talents
- Meet Slava Akulov, CEO and Co-Founder at AI-Powered Financial Assistant: Jupid
- A Chat with David Villalón, Co-Founder & CEO at Agentic Process Automation Platform: Maisa
- Meet Ifty Nasir, Founder and CEO at ShareTech Platform: Vestd
- Interview With Will Mapstone, Founder of Wash Doctors
What do you think makes this company unique?
We make coffee that people like to drink. We know that Brits like a particular type and style of coffee. They want it to taste the way it smells, while also providing them with a boost to their energy levels. This is the benchmark of all of our coffee – our combinations are not unusual, but every sip is guaranteed to taste good, like a proper cup of coffee should.
We listen to our consumers and take every piece of feedback on board. This helps us to develop new blends, as well as make existing blends as good as they can possibly be. We make sure every sip, from the first to the last delivers a consistent, strong flavour for everyone to enjoy.
Consumers want the best quality coffee from the comfort and convenience of their home. This is what CafePod offers and will continue to offer.
How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
CafePod started exclusively with pods for Nespresso® machines. At that time, there was a consumer demand for this which other brands were not meeting.
Over the years, we’ve extended our product range to include more varieties, as well as branching into Whole Bean and Ground Coffee. We’ve extended our in-store retail availability but have also extended our D2C and e-commerce offering, helping consumers understand more about the brand and the benefit of drinking CafePod. Before lockdown, 10% of our revenue was through e-commerce, now it’s around 45% and this figure continues to grow.
We recently launched two new flavoured coffees; Hey There Hazelnut and Choc ‘n’ Roll and have additional blends set to launch later this year.
What can we hope to see from CafePod in the future?
We will continue to grow our product range but at the heart of our offering will always be delicious everyday coffee. We believe that Brits don’t enjoy light coffee, they want coffee with a punch which is reflected in our sales with Supercharger Espresso being one of our bestsellers.
Our flavoured coffee is a new addition and has been extremely successful so far. We’re finding that consumers turn to it as an afternoon treat, instead of reaching for a bar of chocolate as the flavour provides a balanced mix of coffee and sweetness, without being overpowering. Because of this learning, we will continue to work on new blends that allow consumers to find the flavour they crave at any time of day.
We’re also finding decaf coffee is increasing in popularity so we will continue to expand this offering, raising expectations of what decaf can be and, in doing so, pushing boundaries of the coffee industry.
