The Drury Tea and Coffee Company, is pleased to announce that it has been accredited as a Living Wage employer by The Living Wage Foundation. A plaque to mark the commitment will go on permanent display in Drury's new premises in Woolwich.

THE LONDON LIVING WAGE

The Company's commitment to pay staff the London Living Wage will see everyone working at Drury - regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors - receive the London minimum hourly wage of £9.15, which is significantly higher than the current national minimum wage of £6.50.

The Living Wage is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually. It is calculated according to the basic cost of living using the 'Minimum Income Standard' for the UK and employers choose to pay the Living Wage on a voluntary basis.

NEW PREMISES

The accreditation coincides with Drury's multi-million pound factory and office move. After 16 years in its present home just south of Tower Bridge in London, Drury is moving to new premises in Woolwich, where the local council, Royal Greenwich, is a keen supporter of the London Living Wage movement.

Living Wage Foundation Director, Rhys Moore said: “We are delighted to welcome Drury to the Living Wage movement as an accredited employer. The Living Wage is a robust calculation that reflects the real cost of living, rewarding a hard day's work with a fair day's pay. We have already accredited 1,300 leading employers ranging from independent printers, bookshops and breweries, to well-known companies such as Nationwide, Aviva and SSE. These businesses recognise that clinging to the national minimum wage is not good for business. Customers expect better than that from their suppliers."

The Living Wage plaque was presented to Drury Director, Marco Olmi, by Living Wage Foundation Programme Manager, Emma Kosmin. Speaking at the presentation, Marco said: “We all know how difficult it is in London to make ends meet on just the minimum wage. Our motives are not just altruistic, however. We anticipate that paying a fair wage will help us retain staff and improve productivity."

About the Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually. The Living Wage is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK. Employers choose to pay the Living Wage on a voluntary basis. The Living Wage enjoys cross party support, with public backing from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

The London Living Wage is currently £9.15 per hour. This figure is set annually by the Greater London Authority and covers all boroughs in Greater London. The UK Living Wage for outside of London is currently £7.85 per hour. This figure is set annually by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University.

The Living Wage Foundation recognises and celebrates the leadership shown by Living Wage employers across the UK. There are currently over 1,300 accredited employers. The foundation is an initiative of Citizens UK and believes that work should be the surest way out of poverty.

Drury Tea & Coffee moved into our new roastery and headquarters in Woolwich at the end of June 2015 and what a move it was. It took us six months to fit out the new building and install our new equipment, whilst we also had to keep our existing site in Bermondsey fully operational.

We feel that this move is a significant step forward for Drury Tea & Coffee as we invest in a host of new facilities and initiatives designed to increase our production capacity and enhance our service levels. Highlights of the new factory are:

1. A new 300 kilo Brambati batch coffee roaster which will almost quadruple our capacity to 2 million kilos per year. It's also cleaner and greener than our old roasting plant.
2. We are doubling our coffee bean packing capacity with the installation of a new Technosys bean packer.
3. We have enhanced our tea production facilities with a second Fuso pyramid tea bag machine and enveloper.

Further details and some photos of our new premises can be found at our Facebook page,

www.facebook.com/DruryUK