51 Degrees North Coffee Company

- Roastery @ Unit 1 Compass House, Velator, Braunton, EX33 2DX
- Speciality Coffee Shop @ Units 7-8 Velator Way, The Gym Braunton, EX33 2FB

OUR STORY

51 Degrees North Coffee Company started out as an idea that Justin Duerden had when a seed was planted in his mind. Having been involved in environmental and wildlife conservation for many years, it was a chance occurrence when Justin and his wife

Cheryl met a lovely American-Colombian couple who owned a coffee plantation in Colombia. Buzzing after their in-depth conversations and pour over coffee tasting session, Justin soon realised his passion for coffee could go further than just sipping a good cup.

“Yearning to learn more about the coffee industry and the art of appreciating speciality coffees, I started my foray into understanding what it takes to make a great cup of coffee. It was with this revelation that I founded 51 Degrees North Coffee Company - 51°00’00.0000” North being the GPS coordinates over the River Torridge where the concept originated - just a stone’s throw away from where we were living back then and where I would always stop to look at the estuary’s wildlife on my daily run.”
- Justin AKA ‘The Coffee Man’

Initially starting out as a solar-assisted coffee van serving speciality coffee since 2017, Justin also founded a coffee shop in July 2020 during the pandemic. At one point, the coffee van was the only place in North Devon to get a takeaway coffee, which attracted people on their daily exercise route as well as the local fire crew, paramedics, coastguards and people having socially distanced business meetings; this became a huge deal in the local community who were really thankful for the coffee van staying open throughout the pandemic. Our ethos was always to serve great quality, consistently-made speciality coffee with expertly-extracted coffee beans roasted in the Southwest, work with local producers and suppliers as much as possible, using organic fresh farm milk and organic non-dairy milk, as well as supporting sustainable coffee plantations and direct trade. Featured in the Independent Coffee Guide within two years and for every year since then, 51 Degrees North Coffee Co. has also been a finalist in the North Devon Business Awards in 2019. In 2022, Justin was also asked to create a special coffee-infused signature drink that was featured in the Indy Cafe Cookbook Vol. 2. We are also proud to be a plastic-free ambassador and to be one of the first independent coffee shops in the Southwest to stop using single-use disposable cups and offer a rental cup scheme, and continuing to work with Plastic Free North Devon to promote plastic-free options amongst small businesses. To lower our carbon footprint even more, we package our coffee in ‘Earthpouch’ which is 100% plastic free, valve-less and kerbside recyclable. is also proud to have its own roastery, championing single-origin and sustainably sourced green coffee, buying direct from coffee farms whenever possible and is small batch roasted. The roastery’s aims are to bring the community together through the love of coffee, and educate as well as increase awareness of the coffee journey from bean to cup.