Responsible, Ethical, Sustainable

Stokes Tea & Coffee is a family run business that has been passionate about delivering excellence and quality since 1902. We don't just focus on Profit - we care deeply about our People and our Planet, and operating responsibly, ethically and sustainably. We respect the environment and buy responsibly and inspire change in our people, our partners, our customers, our community and our business.

Our Vision:  We will work together to deliver passion, innovation and excellence for a changing world.

Our Values:

  • Honest – taking the lead ethically and responsibly
  • Reliable – trusted to deliver on our promises
  • Passionate – about our people, our customers, our communities
  • Collaborative – always working together to achieve excellence
  • Respectful – to our world and everyone in it

Responsible

We have strict social and environmental practices and our business is guided by clear principles including; consistency of quality, transparency, customer service, integrity, value for money and honest, hard work.

Ethical

We do everything possible to make sure that every business partner, from our team in the UK and our local communities to our suppliers on the other side of the globe are treated fairly. One of the ways we do this is by purchasing coffee and tea through companies that have direct links to our farmers. We even source coffee from the most sustainable farm in Brazil! This way, we know where every penny goes including to local hospitals, schools and other services that benefit farmers and their families.

We also use organisations such as Fair Trade and the Rainforest Alliance and support charities like Coffee Kids which encourages better medical care and education in coffee growing communities. We regularly donate to charities like Project Waterfall and will continue to work with and care about our communities both near and far.

Some of the Fair Trade beans currently being roasted by our master roasters include a Costa Rican and a Sumatran, both single Origins, as well as various bespoke blends for our commercial clients.

Rainforest Alliance Certified   Fairtrade

Sustainable

We want to minimise environmental impacts in the areas of waste, water, energy and air quality and even though we have been around for well over a century, we are constantly innovating to help solve modern day problems.

Recently, we introduced a scheme known as Zero Waste which cuts down on packaging by delivering our coffee and tea to customers in re-useable buckets. The buckets can be used repeatedly, and they keep products perfectly fresh and in peak condition without the need for packaging. Offering products in buckets rather than in packaging can potentially save over sixty bags on just one order.

This scheme is one of many things we are doing to minimise waste - here are just a few more examples of what we are doing:

  • Investing in recyclable packaging
  • Supporting the free top-up refill water scheme
  • Planting trees
  • Using upcycled materials to refurbish our premises
  • Roasting our coffee with our eco-friendly coffee roaster to cut the use of natural gas and CO2 emissions
  • Using energy saving lighting and equipment
  • Investing in smart heating systems and sharing best practice on energy saving methods including for heritage buildings, with other organisations
  • Re-purposing coffee grounds and sacks
  • Stokes cafés are proud to serve the finest and freshest locally sourced ingredients which not only supports our lovely local producers, it also cuts down food miles too!
  • Our cafés minimise their waste production and follow a sustainability journey of measure, manage, reduce and certify
  • We have signed up to make sure that any surplus food can be shared rather than binned through the Too Good To Go scheme.