Helpful for small businesses struggling through the pandemic.

An Irish coffee roaster is giving back to some of the cafés forced to close due to the coronavirus outbreak. Roasted Brown has seen a 1400 percent increase in online sales since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the country as the public turn elsewhere to source their caffeine fix. The independent coffee roaster supplies beans to many Irish cafés and coffee shops including Cass & Co. in Waterford, Happy Out on Bull Island, Thru The Green in Dundrum and Lost & Found in Coleraine. They have since launched a new initiative to give back to their customers, to ensure that their shops and cafés can keep selling through the pandemic. Founder of Roasted Brown Ferg Brown said that following the mass closure of most cafés and coffee shops across the country, he - like most businesses - was forced to adapt. https://www.instagram.com/p/B4C98tdnyXL/ "Our sales virtually stopped overnight as many of the businesses we supply closed," he said. "Like many small businesses across the country, we had to adapt our business model quickly to survive and to continue to make sales. We also felt strongly that we needed to do something to support our customers which are small businesses around Ireland." When a person buys a bag of coffee on the Roasted Brown website, they will be asked to provide the name of the coffee shop where they usually get their fix of Roasted Brown beans. The customer will get their bag of coffee, and the coffee shop in question will get 100 percent of the sale proceeds - just as if the coffee was actually bought there. "We introduced the ‘Our Shop is Their Shop’ initiative which has been very successful," says Brown. "[It] means that our customers, coffee shops across Ireland, can continue making sales during this terrible time while consumers can continue to enjoy their coffee of choice." You can find out more about the Our Shop is Their Shop initiative here.