Coffee#1, the brand owned by SA Brains, the Welsh brewer and leisure operator, has collected the Café/Coffee Bar Chain Award at the Café Society Awards for the fifth year running.
M&S won the Café Marketing Award for its Macmillan Cancer Support Campaign and also won The Chain Café Development Award for its M & S Flavours Café at the awards held at the Roof Gardens in Kensington.
The 31-strong Coffee#1 opened its own ‘Academy’ training centre in Bristol earlier this year, which will train its next generation of baristas. It will also be used to train staff from the managed estate of Brains to improve its pub’s coffee offer.
It hopes to operate 50 sites by the end of 2013.
The Café/Coffee Bar Independent Award was picked up by Nude Espresso, London, while Gold Awards were handed to Kaffeine, London; Elephant Coffee, Neston; Bragazzi’s, Sheffield; and Tea Monkey, Milton Keynes.
The Café Society Award this year was awarded to Paul Meikle-Janney, of Coffee Community in recognition of his significant contribution to improving the standard of the coffee making industry, both in the UK and abroad
The Awards were judged by a panel of experts with the aim of finding those who show genuine leadership in their sector. In each category the judges looked for evidence of success and innovation in all aspects – from venue ambiance, to the commercial viability of products and services.
