Kettering husband and wife start the town's only coffee roasters

A husband and wife from Kettering have started the town's only coffee roaster and are producing unique coffee you can buy online or from their mobile shop.

Tim and Maria Mulligan set up No 13 Coffee Roasters in their garage after a life in catering and getting into coffee after a car boot sale find.

Maria said: "We are the only coffee roaster in Kettering.

"We're a husband and wife team. We've always been involved in catering, I'm originally from Essex and my parents owned an Italian restaurant there.

"Coffee has always been our passion."

The couple discovered a coffee machine at a car boot sale for just £5 and Tim fixed it up.

Maria said: "We started fixing coffee machines and then we got a one-kilo roaster and last year we bought a commercial (five-kilo) roaster and kitted out our garage.

"It's now our roaster and we bought a horsebox which we renovated ourselves. It's copper and white inside, it's really beautiful."

Tim and Maria take their mobile coffee shop to car boot sales and at outdoor markets in Rothwell and Oundle. They had a full calendar of events booked for 2020 but coronavirus restrictions meant many were cancelled.

No 13 Roasters' coffee is available to buy online and comes in environmentally friendly packaging.

Tim said: "Our main objective was to sell the freshest coffee that you can buy. We were also very passionate that we would be as sustainable as possible.

"We started with our packaging sourcing an aluminium free sustainable plastic, where the manufactures are Co2 neutral placing a band around the bag with all the information, that could then be removed and placed in the bin (no labels for us)."

The couple also wanted to support smaller coffee farmers, so Tim set about researching how he could source their beans.

He got in touch with the owner of the warehouse where most of the UK's coffee imports are stored. From there, he was put in touch with a businessman who imports coffee from small farms in Columbia.

Tim said: "We buy from only small speciality importers where the farms are owned and run by generations of the same families knowing they are being paid fairly.

"They're so small they wouldn't be able to export on their own, but they come together as a co-operative."

Tim said No 13 Roasters pay a premium for this coffee, but it means the farmers get a fair price and No 13 Roasters get unusual and fresh coffee blends.

While Tim and Maria are passionate about their coffee, another reason they set up No 13 Roasters was because it allows them to work from home.

Tim said: "We're foster parents and we have two girls, so it allows us to spend more time with them at home."

No 13 Coffee Roasters is available to buy online here and is currently offering free delivery on all orders over £12.

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