Conversation with… Peter Grainger of CafePod
Here we chat with Peter Grainger, co-founder of CafePod, about why he established the business, the challenges of growing a new coffee brand, the launch of CafePod’s new Clapham store, and his take on the evolving UK coffee market.
Can you tell us a bit about your early career?
I’m originally from Cape Town, South Africa. I came to the UK in my early 20s. I’d studied finance, so I went into financial services, first in Dublin, where my mum’s family is from, and then London.
I was in London during the heyday of finance and before the crash, working for some of the big banks. Nothing flashy – I wasn’t a trader with money falling out of my pockets. I was one of the people in the background making sure everything got processed. It was informative and I worked with some amazing people, but eventually I needed a break.
Subscribe to TRBIn South Africa the idea of a “gap year” doesn’t really exist, so I took my own and travelled around South and Central America. That period is what ultimately led me into coffee.
What inspired you to launch CafePod and what gap did you see in the coffee market back in the early days?
I’d love to say it was a deep passion for coffee, but like a lot of entrepreneurial stories, I stumbled into it.
Around that time, Nespresso’s patents on their pods expired. I didn’t know this – I just met someone in Cape Town who was making compatible pods, and I asked a few curious questions because I needed to replace the pods I’d drunk from a friend’s machine!
I took the idea back to London, talked to some friends, and suddenly, what started as curiosity looked like a real business opportunity. The three of us – none of us with any experience in branding, marketing, or manufacturing – registered a company and decided to build a coffee pod product that had never been made outside of Nestlé.
It was, in hindsight, very naïve. A curse or a blessing? I’m still figuring that out.
Taking a leap like that comes with risks. What felt like the biggest risk at the time?
There’s the perceived risk and then the real one. At the time, we thought the biggest threat was legal – that Nestlé would come after us. And they did try, as they did with most companies in the space.
What we didn’t perceive as a risk was whether consumers wanted our product, or whether supermarkets would take us. We were so excited and so confident that we just ran forward without thinking twice.
CafePod has grown through both D2C and retail. What have those experiences taught you?
That each channel is completely different. When we launched in 2010, we agonised over whether selling on our own website would upset the supermarkets. Now that sounds absurd as everyone has a D2C site. But at the time, the rules of retail were still being rewritten.
D2C gives you closeness to customers and direct engagement, but you have to drive every single person to your store yourself. With retailers, they bring millions of people through the door every day and that foot traffic is priceless. The challenge is standing out on the shelf.
The everlasting question for D2C is: how do you get people to walk through your digital door?
You’ve spoken a lot about customer loyalty. How do you build it?
For years we’ve obsessed over loyalty, not programmes or points, but becoming worthy of loyalty.
People stay loyal to brands because the product works and it tastes great. Food is about taste, and people forget that. You can have all the ESG credentials in the world, but if your coffee doesn’t taste good, nothing else matters.
We’ve focused on making incredible tasting products and listening carefully to our customers. What flavour makes them light up? What are they excited about? When people tell us, “This is the best coffee I’ve had in years,” that’s the foundation you build everything else on.
What led you to open the new CafePod store in Clapham, South West London?
A moment of madness, and also COVID.
During the lockdowns, people suddenly had to make coffee at home. They bought machines, tried new beans, watched YouTube videos, and still many said their coffee tasted terrible. There was nowhere to go for help.
Think about any other hobby or category – bike shops for cycling, ski shops for skiing, pet shops, pharmacies. Coffee had no specialist store. In the UK especially, we skipped over the at-home coffee culture that exists in Europe. The CafePod store is about fixing that gap.
Yes, we sell beans and equipment – but our secret sauce is service, hospitality, and know-how. Tasting, trying, asking questions, helping people match beans to their machine. People don’t even know what questions to ask, and that’s been fascinating.
We’re bringing everything under one roof to empower people to make great coffee at home.
Can you share any future plans for CafePod?
I’ve been doing this for 14 years, so I have two brains; the entrepreneurial one that wants 100 stores, and the pragmatic one saying, “One step at a time.”
I genuinely believe there’s demand for specialist coffee stores across London and the UK. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people struggling with at-home coffee. Our overarching vision is simple: empower people to make great coffee at home.
Whether that’s access, knowledge, confidence, or just helping them feel like they can brew something brilliant – we want to be the brand that guides them.
How do you see the UK coffee market evolving?
There’s this interesting divide in consumers – the “old guard” and the “new guard.”
Younger people don’t grow up with bitter flavours. They like sweeter things, and they see coffee more as an ingredient – think cold brews, concentrates, coffee cocktails. They’re less precious about origin stories and altitude, and more focused on flavour and enjoyment.
It’s like ordering a piña colada; no one asks if the coconut milk is sustainable. They just want a great drink. I think that mindset is growing, and the products will evolve to reflect that.
What one piece of advice would you give someone starting a retail brand today?
Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much. I’m still learning that lesson, every day!
