While many coffee companies have struggled to get subscription services off the ground, Pact Coffee has bucked the trend. With double-digit growth predicted for the next year, CEO Paul Turton reveals how the roaster has continued to gain momentum post-COVID and the subsequent subscription drop-off.
There are few companies that experienced business growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet for the select few already in the subscription market, having their customer base stuck at home was an opportunity for expansion.
As many struggled to shift to the new, smaller way of life during lockdowns, one of the simple joys during the period of confinement was receiving everyday luxuries such as roasted coffee, baked goods, and beauty products by post.
For those who could afford it, retail therapy lived up to its moniker. In the United States (US), for example, between March and May 2020, the retail subscription service market saw growth rates of up to 145 per cent. And this wasn’t just a solution for consumers.
For retail and some hospitality services, delivering goods direct to the customers who could no longer visit their venues or their customers’ venues was a method of generating revenue. In the global coffee industry, this shift saw many roasters pivoting from B2B wholesale to B2C subscription models.
In July 2020, it was estimated that one in 10 people in the United Kingdom (UK) had subscribed to a food or drink service, with coffee among the most popular products. Roasters of all shapes and sizes across the world launched subscription schemes and many commentators predicted the consumer preference for getting products delivered direct to their doors would outlive the pandemic. And yet, as soon as people regained their freedom, the appetite for the subscription services started to decline.
Many coffee companies tried to keep this new revenue stream alive, but most failed to reverse the decline – except for a select few, such as Pact Coffee in the UK. One of the reasons for its continued success? It didn’t pivot.
“Pact Coffee started as a subscription service and then established a roastery. Whereas many roasters entered the subscription market in response to COVID-19, we’d been in the industry since 2012,” Pact Coffee CEO Paul Turton tells Global Coffee Report.
“Part of our success was that, in the specialty sector, we were the first in. Our Founder Stephen Rapoport started the business from his kitchen, fed up with the problematic coffee industry. Being the early adopter definitely helped us.”
Today, around 60 per cent of roasters in the UK offer subscription schemes, with a large proportion of those companies entering the market during the first lockdown. For most of those roasters, subscriptions now make up a minor percentage of their revenue, yet Pact’s more than 45,000 active subscribers account for 65 per cent of its business.
“The technology we use has been another major factor in our success. When everyone entered the subscription market in 2020, most of them launched on the Shopify platform, which does a good job but doesn’t offer the tailoring that’s needed,” Turton says.
“Our technology allows us to offer our customers several key things: the ability to change frequency to suit their schedule as well as pause their subscription at any time; a very easy method to cancel, which is hugely important to build trust; and the option to click an ASAP button and get coffee delivered the next day, whatever point in their subscription cycle.”
The online retail platform Pact uses is bespoke, with a support team working on the site and with customers every day to keep the business ticking over.
“Subscription services are hard – it’s not a license to print money. A lot of B2B providers are disinvesting because they haven’t cracked it,” he says.
“Numbers spiked massively during COVID and then they dropped off. We did experience a tail off too, but we’re once again in that growth cycle.”
Bouncing back Since taking over as CEO in 2017, Turton has tripled the company’s annual turnover from £5 million (US$6.64 million) to £15 million (US$19.92 million). With a background in big businesses such as Office Depot in the US and Hays PLC in the UK, stepping into the role he wanted to utilise his leadership, sales, and marketing experience in a smaller, more innovative setting.
“I wanted to truly make something my own and take the reins of a more entrepreneurial setup,” Turton says.
“As soon as I met the team, I could feel the energy in the room – it was completely different from my 20-year corporate experience where more often than not people didn’t want to be there. Everyone was very passionate about the project. Stephen had given his heart and soul to the business and it was time for him to pass that on.”
In the eight years that have passed, Turton has helped build on the original subscription business by introducing a B2B wing of the operation, which is evenly split between office and corporate settings and the hospitality sector such as cafés, restaurants, and bars.
In 2023, Pact also entered the grocery market, with its product first introduced to high-end supermarket Waitrose.
“It’s funny because supermarkets were our original enemy – they were the main market we were going up against. But we’d been watching Waitrose’s progress over some time and what persuaded us to partner with them was their care and consideration for the products they choose to stock,” he says.
“They care for the producers and they’re there for growth. We’ve been in Waitrose for 18 months now and gone from strength-to-strength. Since then, we’ve also partnered with other luxury grocers such as Ocado, Whole Foods, and Abel & Cole.”
While expanding into grocery and B2B has accelerated Pact’s growth, the lion’s share of its revenue is still generated by subscriptions. As of May 2025, it had 45,000 regular subscribers in the UK, 30,000 of which had bought more than 20 bags of coffee from the brand. So how did Pact bounce back after the post-COVID slump?
“Some of it was having a rock-solid proposition. From the beginning of the business, we have focused on freshness and our process means customers never receive a bag of coffee that’s more than seven days old. Generally, it’s roasted on day one and delivered by day three,” Turton says.
“We also cracked many of the retention challenges. In the early days, we were heavily discounting the first bag and finding a lot of people didn’t stick with us past that. Now, we encourage new customers with free gifts instead, such as a V60, cafetiere, or Clever Dripper. A free gift works well because it gets the customer familiar with the proposition.”
Another string to the team’s bow has been the use of intuitive technology. Pact’s web team developed a Coffee Picker tool that helps customers select coffees that suit their preferences, which uses customer feedback as well as user data to generate suggestions.
“We normally send new customers a crowd-pleasing blend we know they’ll love first, before starting to introduce them to more fruity and floral beans,” he says.
“Our menu is always changing and our customers typically have the opportunity to choose from more than 200 coffees over a year. It’s important to us to cater to both the coffee connoisseurs as well as mainstream audiences who are only just being introduced to specialty coffee.”
Green beans and cost increases While the coffee industry has experienced one of its most challenging years due to high coffee prices, supply and demand issues, and shifts in consumer buying habits, Pact Coffee is on track to achieve 15 per cent growth in 2025.
“We made some important changes to protect the integrity of what we do – including a price increase of £1 on most bags – and the result has been overwhelmingly positive, with 99 per cent of customers choosing to stay with us. It’s a testament to the strength of our customer base and the value they place on quality, ethics, and transparency,” Turton says.
“We have been crystal clear with our communication that farmer welfare remains essential to our business.”
Forming direct-trade relationships and ensuring coffee farmers receive fair payment for their crop has been a pillar of the brand since day one. In the 2024/25 period, as per the company’s impact report, Pact roasted 506,974 kilograms of coffee.
It paid farmers, on average, 48 per cent more than the Fairtrade base. What’s more, 60 per cent of the beans were sourced from women or gender equity groups, and 34 per cent from rural-poor farms.
“We work directly with 200 farms across the globe and can pay a premium for the coffee we source. We manage our supply chain from farm to cup and this model allows us to cut out the middleman and make a good margin while still paying farmers well,” he says.
According to Turton, this model of paying a premium means Pact hasn’t been impacted as greatly by market volatility as many other roasters.
“While the commodity market has been going crazy, we’ve been able to cope because we were already paying more for the coffee and we don’t have to deal with so many constituent parts along the supply chain,” he says.
“The spike at the start of 2025 did give us a headache, but nothing more than a headache because we’ve been paying well over commodity rates for a long time and so the shift was less seismic for us.
“The commodity market is the evil of the industry. It doesn’t work – it’s anachronistic. At some point, the coffee market will retreat and then how will the farmers be treated? We’re deeply worried about the impact it will have on them.”
Though Pact is currently competing for the title of Europe’s biggest coffee subscription service with Dutch company The Coffeevine, an international setup that curates beans from different specialty roasters, Turton says there are no plans for European expansion just yet.
“There’s still plenty of room for growth in the UK – not just in direct-to-consumer but also in B2B and grocery,” he says.
“Unfortunately, some coffee companies will be struggling due to green bean prices. I think we’ll see more price increases across the board and we may see some roasters cease to exist, so there may be more market share there.
“Our proposition is really robust and we’re in a strong position to take more share in all of our chosen markets.”
As interest in specialty coffee in the region continues to grow, the CEO believes there’s opportunity for high-end offerings to overtake popular products such as capsules.
“Over the next few years, I think specialty will grow faster than any other part of coffee. Pods have stagnated and that’s opening the market for high-end roast and ground products like ours. I believe we’re in the right space,” he says.
“I’m incredibly proud of what our team have achieved so far and what’s to come. They are a very stable, talented, and knowledgeable group that have stayed true to the foundations of the brand. We’re positive and optimistic about the future.”
This article was first published in the July/August 2025 edition of Global Coffee Report. Read more HERE.
