There’s more success brewing for a South Wales coffee business founded over 90 years ago by an Italian immigrant after it teamed up with a leading food distributor.
Ferrari’s Coffee was started by Vittorio Ferrari who arrived in South Wales in 1927 bringing with him the skills and secrets of Italian coffee making.
He opened a successful coffee shop in Bridgend which thrived for many years but it had just three employees when it was taken over in 2018 by husband and wife team Yash and Rahki Dhutia.
They set about rebuilding the business and have just signed a partnership agreement with leading Welsh food distribution Harlech Foodservice which will soon see their unique range of coffee blends in hotels, restaurants and cafés across Wales and the border counties.
They currently employ 17 at their purpose-built site on Bridgend Industrial Estate where they make a range of coffee blends with their three traditional Italian drum roasters producing 250,000 kilos of coffee – enough for 25 million cups.
Managing Director Yash was at Harlech’s annual Food Expo in Llandudno where Ferrari’s Coffee had a stand for the first time and he said: “We met Harlech at the Royal Welsh Show where we were exhibiting in the special food hall for Welsh producers.
“That’s when our conversation started and now we are in partnership and we believe the main benefit to us is in what Harlech do very well and that’s distributing products.
“We have a very good quality product and the challenge for us was to get it to the market to people who serve coffee multiple times a week.
“When you deliver to a coffee shop they also require a full service package with coffee machines and training in how to produce the best possible product and we provide that as well.”
Harlech, based near Criccieth in Gwynedd, is one of the UK’s fastest-growing food distribution companies and now has centres in Carmarthen and Merthyr Tydfil as well as in Chester and Telford.
In the past three years their sales have increased from £32 million to a record turnover of around £50 million with profit at an all-time high of more than £2 million.
This has been achieved on the back of a change of strategy which has seen Harlech expand to cover all of Wales with a dedicated sales team in South Wales backed up by the new depots in Merthyr and Carmarthen as well as an increasing presence in the North West and Midlands from hubs in Chester and Telford.
Harlech Head of Purchasing Josie Swift said: “Ferrari’s Coffee have a great name in South Wales and that name is always going to get attention.
“They may not have anything to do with the cars but they have their own story to tell about how Vittorio Ferrari came to Wales and opened his coffee shop in 1927.
“Yash and Rahki bought the business in 2018 and have transformed it. They are a family business as is Harlech so we share the same values.
“They have a high quality product, based on the original that Vittorio Ferrari brought with him and are looking to expand and we believe we can help them do that, especially in North, Mid and West Wales.
“The partnership also provides for leasing and maintenance of the coffee machines alongside the sales of coffee beans and ground coffee and that’s reassuring for our customers as well.
“Working together can help both companies. We both want to expand and grow our markets and teaming up makes perfect sense.”
Harlech last year announced a three-year £6 million expansion plan which has already seen it open new depots in Carmarthen and Telford in the last 12 months to add to those at Cricieth, Chester and Merthyr Tydfil.
They have also created 75 new jobs of a planned 150 increase in staffing taking the workforce to 250 and now runs a fleet of 65 vehicles delivering up to 5,000 product lines to cafés, restaurants, pubs and public sector customers.
