Barista Angie Costanzo roasts the new Sir Isaac Brock Blend at the Guernsey Market.

Brock Dining Services is now exclusively serving fair-trade and organic coffee in the Guernsey Market and its catering departments. They are roasting the beans on-site and are marketing the coffee as Sir Isaac Brock Blend.

“We’re the first university in Canada to roast their coffee beans on site,” said Iain Glass, managing director, Food Services at Brock. “With the concept of the Guernsey Market to use the freshest ingredients, we can now also ensure our coffee is as fresh as it gets.”

Coffee beans are cultivated from raw fruit “cherries” that grow on coffee plants. The surrounding pulp of the fruit is then removed through processing leaving the bean, which is then further processed and dried. The end result of this complex procedure is unroasted green coffee beans. These green beans are then roasted, ground up and brewed with hot water in order to make coffee.

The University receives a weekly shipment of 180 kgs (400 lbs) of green coffee beans from the Vittoria coffee company based out of Toronto. From there, Food Services staff who have been specially trained roast the green beans on site and the coffee is ground up and sold as a drink and in take-home packages in the Guernsey Market.

“The green beans and roaster are on display for all to see in the Market,” said Glass. “Beans are roasted all day long, so members of our community are guaranteed to always have the freshest cup of fair-trade coffee possible when they are here.”

In early 2011, Dining Services made the switch to fair-trade coffee as its default serving, which it sourced from a local roaster. The switch was the result of campus-wide action by Brock faculty, students, staff and suppliers.

Dining Services then started to experiment with the idea of acquiring and roasting its own beans on site. This initiative gathered momentum and led to the launch of the University’s own Sir Isaac Brock Blend brand of coffee in February 2012.

View the Sir Isaac Brock Blend information and pricing sheet (.pdf).

Jamie Burdon, Sodexo director of retail operations; Stephen Pillar, Vice-President Academic, and Niki Vermeulen, marketing manager of the Guernsey Market, cut a ribbon for the new Sir Isaac Brock Blend.