After losing his friend Andy, who had designed and built the initial coffee cart, Jacob had a vision to serve the best coffee in the world. So, he hit the West Auckland streets in the now iconic coffee cart.
2010 arrived and Jacob took a trip that would change his life. He travelled to a Gulu, a little town in Nothern Uganda, East Africa, to help build houses for war affected children, but while he was there he spent time exploring the coffee plantations. He met with lots of people growing great coffee, and heard stories of local coffee farmers who lacked the infrastructure to get a fair price for their product. Jacob came back to New Zealand fired up with the dream to help these Ugandan coffee farmers through a direct trade partnership. So, later that year, he launched Mt Atkinson Coffee Roasters with the aim of providing the best coffee to local west Auckland cafes and to his own cart, while paying the coffee farmers a fair price for their beans.
“In everything we do, we transform lives”
Fast forward to today and Mt Atkinson is a coffee roaster that roasts beans on a daily basis to create what customers call “the best coffee in the world”. We are now importing container loads of coffee from Uganda. All of this coffee directly contributes to community transformational initiatives in the Kanungu region of West Uganda. The dream is that a new story would be written about the Kanungu region. That they would thrive as a result of our coffee purchasing. The Mt Atkinson crew is headed by Jacob, Emily and the team, but it does not stop there. The crew also includes the coffee farmers in Uganda, the New Zealand cafes that serve Mt Atkinson coffee to their patrons, the customers who visit the coffee cart for a chat and a delicious coffee hit, those that embrace the coffee cart hire service at their events, and the people that buy via the online store. And you could be part of the crew too!
“We love that serving coffee provides a space for a great connection to happen. Genuine connection is what the world needs. For us at Mt Atkinson, we are about connecting on every level, with our social media followers, with the people who buy and serve our coffee, and with the communities and people who grow and process the magic bean.”
