▷ 4 years of Krogen coffee: our review

We noticed that we haven’t published a review article in… Our 1 year! 😮 This really needed fixing. Especially because they have been eventful years and today seems like a good time to take stock. Why is now the right time? You will find out in this article, of course! 😉

The first three years: launch, growth, challenges

The launch

This little article is also an opportunity to once again tell the story of the company’s creation, especially for those who are new to it! Before Krogen, Alexis was a health, safety and environmental manager and I, Anthony, was a nurse. We both wanted to retrain for various reasons, we needed to create something, to work with passion and desire. We met at that time, and we immediately imagined creating something together. What followed… there were many video sessions to exchange because we were not in France at the time. One thing led to another and we wanted to work in coffee: it was a passion that united us and we had some experience in this environment.

Working in coffee is nice, but it’s a broad approach. We wanted a project that resembled us, with our values: 100% organic, 100% fair trade and quality! We went towards the creation of a Coffee Shop with roasting, but it was in the times of Covid. It was difficult to find financing from banks. This is why, after having further developed the project, we dedicated ourselves only to roasting. After some training, here we are! We then found a location in Ploeren and off we went.

The years of transition

The first years were… Longer than expected. We also had to learn many things about work: accounting management, procurement, etc. It was intense, but we always believed in our business.

There were difficult moments, particularly when I had to return to work alongside Krogen, and Alexis very often found himself working alone. Looking back, one of our great strengths at this moment is now clear to me: we have never stopped believing in our values, we have never made concessions: 100% organic, 100% fair trade and accessible to all! Perhaps it is precisely the “accessible to all” aspect that has hindered us. Except that, with dedication, we were both able to dedicate ourselves full time to the business. It was March 2024, 2.5 years after we launched our company.

Except that at the same time we accepted a challenge: to move (same address, but in front of the building, practical) and open a shop. This gamble immediately paid off and allowed us to move on.

Krogen today

Lessons learned

Today we find ourselves at an important moment for our business. It is with satisfaction that we are finally able to say to ourselves «enough, it works!» We can only say this to ourselves now. What a victory! And we also feel that these years have transformed us and that all these things learned at work now seem simpler to us: managing stress, becoming independent, having everything on our shoulders, managing many aspects at the same time, managing rushes, supplies, delays in supplies, social networks, packaging, roasting, procurement, home research, etc… We have learned many lessons, perhaps the main one is «don’t light up» and «always» believe it».

Great successes

The great success is still being able to say that we can repay ourselves thanks to the work we both do. But obviously not only that. We have never made concessions on our values, as previously mentioned. And when we receive so much positive feedback on our coffees, it always makes us very happy. We also always question ourselves, we try to improve and I think this is what is paying off today.

Our community: the heart of Krogen coffee

Our greatest successes are also our community. The relationships we have built with our colleagues in the market and also with our customers. It is a relationship of trust, transparent, and it is also what motivates us. Contact with customers at the market allows us to rediscover closeness with our customers, a very human side of our work, which we really like. Even with our professional clients it is a relationship that is built over the long term and is intensifying. We take care of all the deliveries ourselves and this allows us, every month, to compare notes and learn about everyone’s difficulties or successes.

Without forgetting all the meetings we had at the BNI in Muzillac with which we are still connected year after year.

Looking to the future

What will our future be like? Where are we going with Krogen? Hard to say. We want to continue spreading our brand, obviously. But above all, never lose this balance and this work alchemy that carries us today. As a concrete project there is the sailing boat: our goal would be to be able to obtain more grain transported in this way. Maybe one day we will even have to recruit, but we are still far from that. The current goal is above all to continue having fun, creating projects that we like (such as coffee-beer collaborations) and making you feel it through our roasts.

Conclusion

In summary, we would like to thank you above all, our customers, our friends, our families, for supporting us. It is thanks to you that Krogen works, it is thanks to you that we feel so much pleasure in working. So we will continue to apply ourselves and give our best to adapt each of our perfect grains, and thus help you wake up every day 😉