Meet the Roaster: Brandon from Surface Coffee
Surface Coffee Roasters was founded by Brandon and Daisy in 2024, drawing on more than 15 years of combined experience in the coffee industry. Their journey began with a small coffee business operating from a beachside van, which eventually grew into seven locations and a team of more than 100 people. After moving on from their previous venture, the duo returned to their roots with Surface, building a Cornwall-based roastery with a focus on great coffee, strong relationships and a more considered approach to business. With ambitions to become the world's first zero-single-use roastery, they're also challenging the way coffee is packaged and enjoyed. We spoke to Brandon to find out more about his journey into coffee, the thinking behind Surface and some of the challenges facing independent coffee roasters in the UK.
Want to discover more independent South West coffee roasters? Read our guide to the best coffee roasters in the South West or try our South West coffee subscription, featuring a different independent roaster each month.
Who or what first pulled you into the world of coffee?
I've been in the coffee industry for around 12 years now. What initially pulled me in was the culture, the people and the whole experience around coffee. I've always loved something a little more hands on. But over the years, it's become much more than that. I've built businesses around it, met some incredible people and made coffee a huge part of my life. I still love the industry, even if I sometimes question my sanity for being in it
How did you get involved with Surface Coffee?
I actually founded Surface alongside Daisy in 2024, but it came from a much bigger journey.
Before Surface, we had built a coffee business with seven coffee houses stretching from London to Land's End in Cornwall, employing around 120 people. We owned the business outright and were preparing to scale to 25 locations, alongside building our own roastery. Unfortunately, we got involved with the wrong people, and things unravelled very quickly. We lost pretty much everything: our business, our money, our cars and our home. We spent an entire year homeless, living in the roastery we'd managed to save by selling my music catalogue to fund the new venture. It was quite literally all we had left. We lived on rice and beans, put our heads down and just got back to work.
Surface was born out of that experience. It was a fresh start, built on everything we'd learned, but with a much bigger purpose behind it. We started with just Daisy and me, selling around 100kg of coffee a month. Fast forward almost three years and we're shipping close to 4,000kg a month with a team of six. It's been one hell of a journey, but I wouldn't change the determination that came out of it.
What's the meaning behind the name (if any!)?
Surface is all about resurfacing. It's about taking a deeper dive into what's beneath the surface and exploring the potential that often gets overlooked. For us, it's about looking beyond what's immediately in front of you, challenging the norm and realising there's always more underneath. Whether that's in business, people or the way we approach coffee, there's always another layer to explore.
What music are you playing in the roastery at the moment?
It really depends on who's roasting! Between myself, Josh and Caris, you'll get a pretty mixed bag. It could be Linkin Park one minute, country music the next, followed by some chilled ambient stuff. There's no real playlist or musical direction. We just go with the mood. I think that's half the fun!
If you could sit down for a coffee with anyone, who would it be and why?
My brother, Tyler. He passed away from lung cancer in 2016, aged just 21. I was 22 at the time, and I still feel there was so much I hadn't said or had the chance to talk to him about. I'd give anything to sit down with him one more time, have a coffee and just talk. Nothing fancy. Just one more conversation.
How do you unwind after a long day roasting coffee?
I go for a surf or a walk. Disconnect to reconnect. No phones, no screens, no emails, no calls and no noise. Just getting outside and spending some time in nature. I think it's incredibly important to switch off from everything occasionally and remind yourself there's a whole world outside of work.
What's your favourite piece of coffee-related kit or equipment?
Our Sanremo Café Racer paired with an X-One grinder. It's the ultimate combination in my opinion. It performs brilliantly, looks incredible and just gets the job done. I'm a big believer that equipment should work hard, be reliable and look good doing it. That setup ticks every box.
What's the most overrated thing in coffee?
Honestly? Roasters making coffee sound like we're all wizards performing some sort of dark magic. I've been in the industry for 12 years and there's so much noise around coffee. People making it far more complicated than it needs to be, particularly when it comes to sourcing. You'll hear plenty of roasters claiming they're buying directly from farms, supporting farming families and paying producers directly. The reality is that the vast majority of UK roasters buy through importers. We can have traceability, know the farms, producers, growing conditions and prices, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're speaking directly with farmers or paying them ourselves. Importers do a huge amount of the heavy lifting. Our job as roasters is to take the incredible work that's already gone into growing and processing that coffee and not mess it up! We need to roast it properly and bring out the best in what's already there. Coffee doesn't need to be overcomplicated. Understand your product, respect the people behind it and make really good coffee. Simple.
What’s your desert-island coffee - the one you'd drink forever if you had to?
Runner, without a doubt. It's our all-rounder. Great as a filter, brilliant as an espresso and equally good with milk. You can enjoy it however you like, which makes it a pretty easy choice if I could only have one coffee forever.
Which coffee-related people, creators or influencers do you think are worth following?
I'm probably the wrong person to ask! I actually run my life from a flip phone. No iPhone full of apps and very little personal social media. I'm a big believer in real human connection and spending time with the people physically in front of you rather than constantly looking at a screen. I'm sure there are some brilliant people out there sharing great things about coffee, but I don't really see much of it. Surface does have social media, but it's managed by our team rather than me or my family. I'd much rather be out there building relationships, roasting coffee and getting on with things than doom-scrolling!
What advice would you give someone thinking of entering the world of coffee roasting?
First, ask yourself why. What's your purpose? Why do you actually want to open a roastery? Is it because you love coffee, the culture, the customers and the experience? Or is it simply because you think there's money to be made?
You need to genuinely love it, because it's going to be bloody hard work.
You also need to understand that roasting great coffee is only one part of running a successful roastery. You need to be good at sales, good with people and understand how to build relationships. People do business with people, not just products. You need to shift a lot of units, build a great team and surround yourself with people who share your values.
Most importantly, enjoy it. Don't spend every day stressing about the next target or worrying about what everyone else is doing. It's a brilliant industry to be part of if you get the fundamentals right.
What challenges do you face in the coffee industry, if any?
One of the biggest challenges is competing with the really big players in the industry. There are some enormous companies offering equipment on free loan, incredibly low coffee prices and deals that smaller independent roasters simply cannot compete with. Some of these companies supply some of the country's biggest chains, alongside thousands of subscribers, yet they can still approach a small independent wholesale customer buying perhaps 10kg a week and offer them a free machine and cheaper coffee.
As a smaller roastery, we simply can't compete with that commercially. It creates a race to the bottom and undervalues the product and the work that goes into it. My concern is that when the biggest players start dominating every part of the market, the smaller independent businesses are the ones who suffer. These are often family-run businesses employing local people and genuinely caring about their customers and products.
I'd encourage people to look beyond the price list and think about who they're supporting. Buy from your smaller local roasters. Support the businesses that care about their teams, their coffee and the communities they're part of.
What's a coffee-related dream you still hope to chase?
We want Surface to become the world's first zero-single-use roastery. That's the big one for us.
We're taking it step by step, but everything we do is moving towards that goal. We've already introduced our lifetime stainless-steel coffee canisters, which customers keep and refill rather than throwing away bags after every purchase.
The next stages include lifetime shipping boxes and home-compostable refills, continuing to remove single-use packaging wherever we possibly can.
Our whole business was built around challenging the throwaway culture that exists in coffee. We want to prove that you can build a growing, successful coffee business without creating mountains of unnecessary waste.
We're not there yet, but we'll keep chipping away at it until we are. That's the dream.
From rebuilding their business from the ground up to developing a more sustainable approach to coffee packaging, Brandon and Daisy have certainly taken an interesting route with Surface. Their ambition to move away from single-use packaging is a particularly interesting one, and it'll be exciting to see how far they can take it. We're chuffed to be able to feature Surface in our South West coffee subscription and hope you enjoy discovering their Cornwall-roasted coffee!
Want to discover more independent South West coffee roasters? Take a look at our guide to the best coffee roasters in the South West or try our South West coffee subscription, featuring a different independent roaster each month.
Interested in finding out more about Surface → check out their official website.
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