Origin Coffee Roasters – Business of the Year and Best Food & Beverage

Origin Coffee Roasters is a coffee shop serving breakfast and lunch, with a special brunch menu available at weekends.

When Sophie Egan submitted her Best Food & Beverage entry to the 2019 Southwark Business Excellence Awards, she knew she was up against stiff competition. So, she was “incredibly proud” to win the category, not to mention the subsequent elation when Origin Coffee Roasters were crowned Business of the Year.

Nestled beneath Scoresby Street’s railway arches, Origin opened in October 2018 and Sophie received her Awards at the celebratory Gala Dinner in June 2019.

She said: “As a new business in the area and up against some seriously impressive, established businesses in the category of Best in Food and Beverage, we were incredibly proud to be announced winner in 2019.”

There was even more good news for Origin as Sophie and her colleague Umair Arshad collected the Business of the Year trophy at the end of the night. Judges selected them as the best of the best from the 14 category winners, praising their highly professional attitude, civic engagement, innovation, strong commitment to sustainability, fantastic customer service, focus on staff training and development, and support for the living wage.

Three months on, the lustre from the event still hasn’t faded.

“When we were announced the overall business of the year, we were ecstatic and completely shocked,” Sophie said. “It was such an honour for all the teams hard work and the different parts of our business to be recognised. We love being in the borough of Southwark and connecting with other businesses. Both our awards are proudly displayed on our shelves and been a great talking point with customers and other businesses in the area using our café space for meetings and a social space too.”

Sophie also praised the Awards process itself because of the feedback and validation she received from the judges.

“It was fantastic to hear the feedback from the judges and how impressed with our food and drink offer, mystery shopper visit and our values of sustainability, sourcing and relationships with suppliers and our coffee farmers,” she said.

Click here to read more about our winners.

Picture shows Sophie Egan and Umair Arshad of Origin Coffee Roasters, on the night of the Gala Dinner, with Alison May of headline sponsor London South Bank University (centre)