Rob Darby - Building a brand at 200 Degrees Coffee

Nottingham Business School Business Leaders

The chief executive of 200 Degrees is proud he only had to make three redundancies during 18 months of the Covid pandemic and lockdown.

Because Rob Darby – whose coffee empire employs 200 staff across shops, barista schools and a major wholesale business – guards jealously his organisation’s reputation as a caring employer.

“It’s a two-way relationship. Without the staff’s hard work and graft we would have no company. We depend on them,” he tells the NBS Business Leaders’ Podcast.

“But they’ve all got families and bills to pay. So, they depend on me too – and I take my side of that very seriously.”

Like most leaders, Rob had to work harder than ever to guide his organisation through lockdown.

He tells Visiting Honorary Professor Mike Sassi that it was the uncertainty generated by the pandemic that was the biggest test of his leadership skills.

“We were fortunate that we were a strong business holding a reasonable amount of cash on the balance sheet. And we had a really strong management team,” he says.

“We had constructive conversations with landlords and pivoted the business to do more online.

“I would like to be sat here saying I didn’t make anyone redundant. But I’m very proud it was only three (the wholesale sales team).

“I did it in the August, with a long notice period because I thought there was going to be a flood of job losses in October and if I did mine early it would give the people involved the best chance of getting new jobs.”

And he was right. All three staff secured jobs elsewhere before they left the 200 Degrees payroll.

Rob and his co-owner Tom Vincent met while they were both studying engineering at university in Nottingham. After graduating, they spent more than a decade running bistros, pubs and cocktails bars.

They first started brewing coffee at their roasting house on the banks of Nottingham’s River Trent because they couldn’t find a reliable supplier.

Almost a decade later – and with 200 Degrees’ annual turnover having recently topped £10m – Rob believes opportunities for their wholesale business are increasing as organisations try to entice their staff back into the office with, among other things, high-quality coffee.

However, he admits to being nervous about what the future might hold for the city centres where 200 Degrees has its shops.

“Our out-of-town destinations are trading very strongly at the minute,” he tells the NBS Business Leaders’ Podcast.

“But some shops in community destinations are still well down on pre-Covid numbers.

“I’m nervous of city centres. Not because I don’t think we can trade well there… I just want to see where the dust settles. There will always be a hub to every city, but it might shift over the next few years to a smaller focal point.”

Rob also has advice for young entrepreneurs and leaders of the future.

He says: “Do something you’re really passionate about. I was passionate about customer service and standards, which within coffee I felt weren’t happening.

“That has driven us to make loads of great decisions. You have to be passionate about what you do.”