"The original idea came from a meeting with Oxfam and the La Central co-op in Honduras," David Williamson told Coffee House magazine at the time. Although Matthew Algie invested in the venture, it took no share of the resulting company, but gave interests to the farmers. He most notably did that with the Progreso chain of coffee bars, formed in partnership with Oxfam, and in which growers were given a share of the business. He was very interested in socially-conscious work - he really did want to give something back." He pushed very hard for the big caterers to take it up, and more recently he has done a huge amount of work with the Rwandan government, as a result of which we are now involved in exchange work with the country. This wasn't a case of getting on the bandwagon, because he had seen it coming, and had been talking to the manufacturers for at least two years before anyone else had heard of it! "People were surprised when he recently took on the Clover machine, the $11,000 machine that makes the best possible cup of filter coffee. He worked for years to convince people about the importance of freshly-roasted coffee, when nobody saw it as an issue - now, it's the issue that everybody's talking about. "He was on to a lot of things before the rest of us got there - he began Espresso Warehouse when everybody said there was no business for a wholesale company supplying coffee bars. His father had seen the potential for growth in filter coffee, and David was probably the first to see the potential for espresso. One of the tributes paid to David Williamson was by the manager of his Espresso Warehouse company, Gary McGann, who told Coffee House magazine: "David had an ability to read a market and look forward and see changes coming. He formed both the Tinderbox coffee bar chain, and then Progreso, the Fairtrade café chain in which coffee-farmers were given am equal share of the business. He created Espresso Warehouse, now the major wholesaler to the coffee-bar trade, at a time when the concept of such a company seemed to have no reason to it. David took over the business from his father in 1995, and steered it through a period of quite remarkable growth - not only does the Algie roastery now supply a reported 60% of the UK's four and five-star hotel chains, and customers such as the house of Commons and the Scottish parliament, Pret A Manger and Marks & Spencer, but he also diversified into what were at the time unheard-of areas. He was only 42, but had made a remarkable impression on the British beverage trade, with many of his former employees and protégés now running significant coffee-supply companies of their own.ĭavid Williamson was a direct descendent of the original Matthew Algie, who founded a roasting business in 1864. The business type is WA LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY.The catering trade has lost one of its most influential beverage suppliers - David Williamson, managing director of Glasgow-based coffee roaster Matthew Algie, has died. The business address is 124 W Kennaston Ave, Montesano, WA 98563-1702, USA. The Unified Business Identifier (UBI) is #603169975. TINDERBOX COFFEE ROASTERS, LLC is a business incorporated with Washington State Secretary of State.
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