Q1. Tell us where it all began
Coffee House Lane is a family-owned business based in Waterford who produce award winning hand roasted coffee. Mark Bergin is the proud owner of Coffee House Lane.
In 2007, Mark and his father set up a family vending business, while working alongside his father it became evident that the real area of growth was in coffee, an area they both were extremely passionate about. After much discussion and planning, they decided to sell the vending business and master the art of producing coffee. 2008 saw the launch of Ponticelli Artisan Coffee. Mark worked with a third-party roaster to develop and roast the Ponticelli blend, until 2011 when Mark purchased his own roaster and started roasting in-house.
“Coffee House Lane is a family-owned business based in Waterford who produce award winning hand roasted coffee.”
This was such an exciting time for Mark, as he had always dreamed of developing his own blends of coffee and roasting in-house. As the business grew organically, and they secured larger contracts, a second roaster was installed, followed recently by a third roaster.
Over the years several different brands have been launched; Ponticelli was the first brand developed, named after an area outside of Naples where Mark and his family visited. Ponticelli is an Irish artisan coffee based on an Italian style coffee. Some time later the brand Coffee House Lane was launched which is a premium coffee developed for hotels and food service. The third brand, Origins is the speciality range, the range consists of single origin coffees which are only available during certain months of the year.
Q2. What differentiates you from other coffee producers in this area?
Coffee House Lane is the only commercial producer in Waterford whose roasting is completed fully in house. All of the coffee produced by Coffee House Lane is roasted in Waterford, this gives Mark and his team full control over what they are producing.
“We are there at every step of the process, full control means that we can stand over everything that we do and produce.”
Q3. What are your top ‘moments of joy’ over the past 4-5 years?
One of the things Mark is most proud of is that he is supporting Irish jobs through manufacturing and distribution. Coffee House Lane employs 14 people, who all share Mark’s passion for good quality coffee! Mark and the team have won many awards over the years, including 4 Blas na hEireann awards and two Great Taste Awards in the UK.
“I love going into a retail outlet and seeing our coffee on the shelf. A lot of what I have learnt is self-thought and comes from years of hard work, so its truly a real sense of pride when I see our range stocked in stores around the country.”
Coffee House Lane is Origin Green Certified and has recently achieved Origin Green Gold Certification which means they have overachieved on what they set out to in terms of sustainability, Mark explained that this is a really great achievement as there are only 50 companies in Ireland who have received Origin Green Certification and he is the only Coffee Producer to have been awarded this certificate.
Another great achievement for Coffee House Lane was achieving their BRC Certificate – which is a testament to all their hard work.
Q4. What would you say are the biggest challenges your business is currently facing?
Of course there have been challenges along the way, with the key challenge currently being increased cost. Regardless of this current challenge, Mark and the team are continually seeking new blends to allow Coffee House Lane customers to discover even more flavours.
Q5. What does the future hold for Coffee House Lane?
When asked about his future for Coffee House Lane … Mark is passionate about making really good coffee for the ever-discerning customer! He plans to continue to grow sales in the domestic market and shared that they have lots of new blends in the pipeline for Coffee House Lane.
