WATCH: From the telephone business to the coffee giant

Thursday 12 March 2026 15:51
| Updated:

Thursday 12 March 2026 15:58

As retail coffee prices rose and consumer spending declined, the UK coffee industry became highly competitive.

US tariffs on coffee-producing countries, hedge fund speculation on commodity prices, and corporate tax increases have created a challenging environment.

So how did an independent producer from South London manage to beat the odds and find his own niche in a busy market?

The business may have made millions of dollars today, but the road to get there wasn’t smooth for founder and CEO, David Abrahamovitch.

The story of Grind begins when Abrahamovitch inherited his father’s mobile phone business in a small building on the Old Street roundabout, a location he later converted into a coffee shop.

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In an in-depth documentary about coffee bullies, Abrahamovitch says AM City Rupert Hargreaves on the biggest challenge he remembers on his journey so far: “The day your whole business is shut down by the government and your business goes from millions to zero overnight, with a few hundred people having to figure out what to do.”

Since then the brand has grown from a single “hipster” location in Shoreditch, to an official partner of British Airways, and signed deals with big names such as Gary Neville.

“We just want to take things to the next level,” says the head of Grind, “taking the specialty coffees we learned the hard way… and now translating them into the different ways people buy coffee.

But success brings new challenges: “We have different businesses, so we have a high street business, we have an online business, and we have a wholesale and B2B business. [business to business].

“So keeping the whole ship moving in the same direction and keeping the values ​​and brands aligned is tough.”