Essex-based businessman, David Holly, started up I Love Decaf this year, where he’s surfing a fast-growing trend providing customers a fun alternative to brand name and own-brand decaf drinks available on supermarket shelves and online.
According to recent research by Coffee and Cocoa International the growth of decaffeinated consumption has significantly overtaken growth in caffeinated. The sales boost has been marked in 18-24-year-olds who now account for around a fifth of all decaf sales.
“I was drinking three litres of tea and coffee a day before I decided to reduce caffeine”, says David Holly owner of I Love Decaf. “Everyone wants to cut back on their caffeine, but the trouble is, most decaf in the supermarket is horrible. Drinking it felt like a punishment. It was like I was in the naughty corner for wanting good decaf tea and coffee. You cannot find it stocked in the supermarket, and there’s not enough choice in one place online.”
David set out to find alternative decaf coffee and tea as well as fruit and herbal teas. After a year of sampling and curating different brews and blends, he found a selection he was happy with and gathered them all under a single brand, so people who want decaf can shop in one place online. I Love Decaf was born and with it came a fresh way of seeing decaf.
While the benefits of decaf are easy to understand, I Love Decaf is promoting its brand in a fresh way. There’s less reliance on health and wellbeing messages and more on fun and flavour, with an irreverent take on the decaf market.
“Every time you open an I Love Decaf pack, we say it’s a bag of personality, even with something as simple as, say, a dark roast coffee. There are different beans, different ways of growing, roasting and blending them and five ways to decaffeinate. There are hundreds of possibilities how that is going to turn out. People seem to already connect with our brand in many ways, something which we enjoy seeing.”
In the future, I Love Decaf say their brand will be found on supermarket shelves, so there’s a clear choice where most people buy their tea and coffee. But for now, www.ilovedecaf.shop is the place to find them.
