If you step into one of Mission��s coffee shops, it��s impossible to miss their bags.

Bag designs

Two tone LDPE coffee bags, recyclable coffee bags, LDPE coffee packaging in an article on Coffee Bag Design Series and Mission Coffee Works

It has steadily grown from there, mainly through word of mouth.��

��It had about four wholesale customers and the guy who owned it literally used to sleep in the warehouse where they roasted the coffee.

Since joining in 2019 as part of plans to scale the company, he has already seen it double in size.

��It started as a tiny little roastery,�� says Jake Holmes, Mission��s managing director.

They now distribute coffee through several wholesale clients in London, while also selling online via their webshop and subscription service.

Its simple philosophy (to get the best beans to people and ensure they knew what to do with them) soon translated into the form of a roastery, from which they focused on wholesale ...

Located in Hackney in London��s East End, the company started life as a modest street van in Peckham nine years ago.

To reach this point, Mission Coffee Works has been on a long journey, undergoing several evolutions along the way.

Now, specialty roasters must offer not only high-quality, traceable coffee, but also a strong brand that resonates.

Home to some of the industry��s biggest names, from Monmouth to Square Mile, it is fiercely competitive and the days when good coffee alone could grab attention are all but a dis ...

Establishing a firm foothold in London��s specialty coffee scene isn��t easy.

This week, we spoke to the London-based roaster Mission Coffee Works about how they use illustrations to capture the ��feeling�� of each coffee.

Coffee Bag Design Series explores the specialty coffee brands with unique packaging designs that stand out and fire the imagination.

The Coffee Bag Design Series: Mission Coffee Works

Did you enjoy this edition of The Coffee Bag Design Series? Next week, we��ll be speaking to UK-based roaster Bean Shot Coffee.

��But if you don��t have a quality product you��re not going to make up for it with the branding or experience alone.��

��It��s tough to nail all three [product, experience, and branding], especially when you��re dealing with grocery store shelves and the sizes they dictate.

��Is it a business that stands behind its product and offers a good experience? Is it someone who is very brand and marketing focused, but maybe without the coffee quality? Or is ...

��If I��m in a grocery store and I see a coffee I��ve never seen before, I��m looking to see what type of business it is.

He goes on to explain that when approaching a coffee brand that he��s unfamiliar with, he��ll ask himself several questions to determine exactly what he��s looking at. ...

��I wanted to be a brand that resonates with people and then we exceed people��s expectations with the quality of the product.��

I never wanted to be a hollow brand, where it��s beautiful, but the stuff is crap.

��Our brand always comes second to a good-quality product,�� Marco says. ��

Although it may seem like random forces are at play, this is actually a carefully devised strategy in which branding serves a secondary purpose, rather than being front and centre. ...

One of the things that sets Methodical aside from other coffee brands is they don��t try to hard sell their coffee to you �C yet you still feel compelled to buy a bag.

Thinking methodically

recyclable coffee packaging from methodical coffee, recyclable coffee bags, in an article on methodical coffee coffee packaging design

But what you see is basically the original design.��

There have been some tweaks to make fulfillment easier with how we place information on the bag.

��We decided to keep it,�� Marco says. ��

This resonated with customers so much that plans to change up the design every few years were quickly shelved.

Clovers, for example, can be found on the lawns of many Greenville houses.

The flower design itself is inspired by plants local to the region.

Blues, lilacs, greens, and a soft orange all come together in a watercolour-like print, while a white hexagon in the middle of the bag showcases information on roast date and flavo ...

The result is a striking, hand-drawn floral design that not only makes for great coffee packaging, but stands as a work of art in its own right.

He also wanted to get away from anything ��digital-looking��, such as solid block colours.

Marco commissioned a local artist friend to work on some illustrations with a brief to create something that would stand out on shelves and people would be proud to display on thei ...

So, with our whole bean product, I wanted to take the emotional experience someone has when they come to our caf�� and try to figure out how they could bring that into their home ...

It��s not necessarily about our brand being front and centre, it��s about the thing itself, the intangible value.

While Marco and the team had gone a long way to achieving these three pillars in the coffee shop itself, the challenge was how to replicate it once they��d started roasting their ...

This meant that not only did the coffee have to be high quality, but the way it was served and the emotional response of the customer also had to be exceptional.

From the very beginning, the goal was to build Methodical on three fundamental pillars: product, experience, and customer service.

Recreating emotional experience

methodical coffee recyclable coffee bags in an article on methodical coffee coffee packaging design

With the money behind them, Marco, Will, and David launched the first Methodical Coffee location.

But he was the only one who believed in what we were doing and saw the vision we were trying to cast.��

��Obviously, it was a huge risk on the landlord��s part.