Founded in 2018, Rosslyn Coffee has quickly become a leading brand in the global specialty coffee space. The company operates six award-winning coffee shops in the City of London, and standing out in The City is no easy feat.
London is crowded with specialty coffee icons: Kaffeine, Caravan, Square Mile, and Assembly, to name a few, and Londoners vote on their favourites with their wallets and purses. One visit to any of Rosslyn’s locations confirms the brand’s preeminence.
To build and maintain the kind of excellence Rosslyn has become known for takes more than the finest beans. An unwavering commitment to excellence, attention to detail, customer service and experience, and a keen nose for innovation complete the brand’s foundational elements.
To keep its coffee shops running smoothly and efficiently, Rosslyn Coffee has recently added the Flo-Smart automated beverage system in an effort to maintain the kind of service speed a London rush hour period demands.
We spoke to Chris Sheppard, head of coffee at Rosslyn Coffee, to hear how Flo-Smart is helping the company save time and money and burnish its stellar reputation.
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Why did Rosslyn Coffee need a Flo-Smart system?
London is an international coffee capital. Over 3,700 coffee shops and cafés cater to its many districts and boroughs, serving its nearly 9 million inhabitants. The average Londoner drinks 767 cups per year, which is almost 7 billion cups per annum.
The booming of London’s coffee scene is evident in the meteoric growth of a few key members of its specialty vanguard. In 2021, Grind was turning over £500K per month in online revenue alone and raised £22m in private equity to fuel expansion to the USA. Meanwhile, Blank Street, a specialty-grade, automation-focused business, raised $67m, and WatchHouse $10m to support an aggressive transatlantic scaling program.
Coffee in London, then, is a competitive enterprise. Still, it hasn’t stopped Rosslyn Coffee, still independently owned and operated, from choosing the heart of the capital’s business district to make its mark, providing both energy and respite to the white-collar crowd.
High-volume locations are great for business but come with heightened stress. The common challenges associated with running a successful coffee shop business, like consistency and quality, service speed, and property and labour costs, are turned up to eleven.
In this regard, Flo-Smart is designed to help by mitigating service bottlenecks, improving quality and consistency in beverage preparation, and whittling down inefficient working methods and labour demands.
“Rosslyn Coffee is a group of high-volume coffee shops, so we are always on the lookout for ways to increase our efficiency in as many areas as possible without sacrificing or compromising quality,” says Chris.
“Flo-Smart helps us do this. Having the Flo-Smart machine installed in our cafés has improved our workflow and service speed. It’s like an extra set of hands which really helps the teams.”
How Rosslyn Coffee uses Flo-Smart to optimise workflow
In a 2-tap or 4-tap set-up, Flo-Smart dispenses up to four different types of liquid at a time, drawing directly from under-the-counter refrigerated lines straight to large refrigerated bladders.
In a typical café, the barista or staff member responsible for preparing liquids at the counter wastes countless seconds retrieving, pouring, and replacing different types of liquid cartons. More often than not, this also leads to a disorganised workspace, wastage, spills, and high amounts of packaging waste.
“Flo-Smart has helped us clean up our workspaces and keep them more orderly, tidy, and clean, which contributes to the overall efficiency of the business,” Chris adds.
With Flo-Smart, a café owner or manager can instead program the Flo-Smart machine to dispense different types of liquids at pre-set amounts. The barista needs only to place a jug under the right tap, and at the press of a button, milk, plant-based milk, or any other non-carbonated, non-pulped beverage is immediately dispensed.
“Multi-pouring is one of our favourite functions,” says Chris. “We also love the fast pump speed of the machine and its hands-free operation.”
Proper organisation in a busy café directly contributes to smoother workflow. As mentioned, not only does the Flo-Smart cut out unnecessary time spent on retrieving and replacing the multitude of different liquid types modern cafés must offer their customers, but it also cuts down on the messy byproducts of a manual process.
Cost saving is a further benefit. Manual liquid management will reflect in a coffee shop’s bottom line, no matter the level of service. Dispensing milk into steaming jugs by hand is inexact; spills will happen, and extra staff is needed.
“At Rosslyn Coffee, we have a very good handle on our operational costs,” says Chris. “Flo-Smart has allowed the company as a whole to operate more efficiently, so installing the equipment has helped in multiple areas.”
Rosslyn Coffee operates with a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The company works alongside the Living Wage Foundation to make sure its team is well taken care of. Instead of sending 32,000 bags a year to landfill, it orders its coffee in reusable tins from Origin Coffee Roasters. Every takeaway cup and lid are fully compostable, including its iced drink cups, and its straws are made from recycled paper.
Flo-Smart directly helps Rossyln Coffee achieve even higher standards of sustainability via its dairy program. The company saves over 80,000 plastic milk bottles from landfills each year by ordering 18-litre reusable kegs from The Estate Dairy in Somerset and dispensing them via Flo-Smart’s automated milk system.
These work seamlessly with Rosslyn’s milk program and help the company save time and money by preparing higher volumes of milk for busy day periods. One 18-litre refill replaces 9 two-litre cartons.
To source your own automated beverage dispensing system from Flo-Smart, visit our website or get in touch with us directly.
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