Ian Balmforth and his Bolling Coffee company from Yorkshire have been named Supplier of the Year to Fortnum and Mason, in the store’s food category. Bolling Coffee supplies the store for both foodservice and for retail, and provides 119 product lines.
“Fortnum and Mason’s brief was to create the best coffee range in the world,” said Balmforth “That was probably impossible, because I don’t know what’s on sale elsewhere in the world – but I’ll confidently say it’s the best range in the UK.
“Fortnum and Mason now has a coffee range which really does include many of the very best coffees in the world. There is a very good Jamaica Blue Mountain, and not all Blue Mountain coffees are of the same quality, and an extremely good Hawaiian Kona, There is a Gethumbwini that many traders just can’t afford.
“All of these have been sourced according to the four underlying principles that we laid down with Fortnum and Mason – traceability, sustainability, ethical sourcing, and in the case of Fairtrade coffees, organically grown.
“The Fortnum and Mason foodservice range includes an espresso blended from components of this same range, and a collection of single-origin cafetiere coffees of the same standard. And we even have two coffees blended with ice-cream in their ice-cream parlour!”
“This is a very demanding customer, which in this case is a compliment, and we have been very pleased with our ability to work a customer who is not happy until everything is perfectly right. Supplying Fortnum and Mason has helped us learn a lot about attention to very close detail!”
by Ian Boughton