A Dark Horse in the world of coffee
Electra Business and Innovation Awards finalist profile: Dark Horse
■ How did the business start and grow to where it is today?
Dark Horse was founded in 2016 by Matthew Payne. Matt has a long association with coffee and the coffee industry having worked as a barista and coffee roaster in Wellington and Melbourne. It was on his return to Kāpiti from Melbourne where Matt became dissatisfied with the style and flavour that local Wellington roasters were providing and decided to have a crack at creating his own blend. This proved immensely popular with everyone who tried it and Dark Horse Coffee was born. Matt began operating out of our Sheffield St window in 2018 and since then we have added two further windows (Coffee & Flowers at Paraparaumu Beach and Egmont St in the Wellington CBD), set up our own roastery utilising a state-of-the-art Loring hot air roaster, and now supply around 50 accounts across Wellington, Kāpiti and Horowhenua.
■ What sets you apart from others in your field?
Dark Horse Coffee has become renowned for creating rich, balanced, full-flavoured blends. It is the combination of these elements that really sets us apart and delivers our distinctive Dark Horse flavour. We work very hard with our own team and with the customers who we supply to ensure the Dark Horse coffee experience is consistently Bucking Delicious.
■ What was your reaction to being named as a finalist?
We were thrilled to be named as a finalist in the Manufacturing, Production and Processing category. This is our first time entering the awards and we had no idea what to expect so it came as a great surprise to make the final cut.
■ What do you like about operating your business in the Kāpiti community
We love the sense of pride our community takes in seeing local businesses succeed. We have been extremely fortunate to have built an incredibly loyal and passionate local following and that word of mouth is now helping us to extend our reach right around the country. We’ve really enjoyed exploring the common ground that exists between local businesses especially around sustainability. We’ve built some wonderful relationships and partnerships with other local businesses and it’s great to see some of them being recognised through the awards process as well.
■ What does a general day at Dark Horse involve?
Every day is about our Bucking Delicious Coffee. Whether we are roasting, packaging, delivering, training or making coffee, it is all about ensuring the highest standards of quality for the consumer. We overlay that with how we manage our impact (Leave Less Hoofprints) and our care for our people (We Are Dark Horse), but fundamentally, it is all about giving people the very best Dark Horse coffee experience we can.