Recent Beans
Barry, Gaz, and Jenny the founders behind Recent Beans in Wakefield and Castleford, UK, found their calling in coffee almost by accident. But what started as a passion quickly evolved into a community-centered roastery, built on a commitment to specialty coffee and reducing environmental impact. Here’s how Recent Beans leverages Bellwether’s technology to serve the freshest, highest-quality coffee, all while staying true to its values.
“The Freshest Cup of Coffee You Can Get” – The Magic of Just-in-Time Roasting
Barry, Gaz, and Jenny built Recent Beans on the promise of offering the freshest coffee possible. “We set out with the idea that we would work on being the freshest cup of coffee you could get, the closest to the roasting date,” says Barry. This means roasting only for the day ahead, a rarity in the industry. “We don’t roast for what our week ahead or month ahead looks like. It’s always one day ahead.” Additionally, they often deliver coffee on the same day it’s roasted. “If there’s someone within two, three miles of the roastery who places an order, we’ll locally deliver it,” Gaz adds. To maintain this level of freshness, they monitor sales trends to adjust production and use Bellwether’s roasting technology to roast small batches daily, and on-site.
For Recent Beans, quality is paramount, and they’ve built their brand on a commitment to specialty coffee. “If it has our brand name on it, it’s always going to be an absolute specialty, because we want the coffee to taste amazing.” says Barry. They also ensure their partners value freshness as much as they do. “We ask all our hospitality venues to make sure none of our coffee is served after four weeks. If they have more than needed, we’ll adjust future orders to keep the coffee as close to the roasting date as possible,” Barry explains. “One of our attractions to Bellwether is that you're essentially disrupting the industry so that people can get fresh coffee… I think that that's the perfect mentality.”
Local First – Creating a Coffee Economy That Works
Economic viability is crucial for Recent Beans, but it’s equally about community. Their retail model avoids competing directly with local coffee shops. “We're not a coffee shop, we are a retail shop. You're coming in to buy a bag of coffee to brew at home,” Gaz affirms. “How can we sell to all the cafes nearby if we’re competing with them?” Barry added. Instead, they supply high-quality roasted beans, leveraging Bellwether’s cost-saving model to support local businesses while expanding their wholesale footprint. The financial gains from Bellwether’s efficient roasters have enabled Recent Beans to experiment and grow sustainably. “Wholesale customers love knowing their coffee is roasted just down the road,” Gaz adds, emphasizing the importance of local sourcing and freshness.
Barry and Gaz see wholesale growth as a natural extension of their commitment to community support. “Our model is going to be to increase the amount of roasteries we have,” Barry shares, envisioning each location as a hub for supporting local cafes and retailers, expanding their e-commerce reach, and sharing their coffee with more people. “People should be able to see the coffee being roasted. They should be able to talk about it,” he adds. This local-first approach allows them to foster closer relationships with wholesale customers, often becoming a trusted resource for everything from training staff to fine-tuning espresso machines. “If the coffee isn’t tasting right one morning, they can just walk down or pick up the phone, and one of our team will go out and check,” explains Gaz.
In addition, the Recent Beans team provides hands-on training for café staff, offering sessions on latte art and equipment maintenance. Through this hands-on, supportive model, Recent Beans are not only expanding their reach but also raising the overall coffee quality in their community. “We're growing somebody else's skill in another business, but ultimately that saves us a lot of time on the back end because we now have remote trainers in all our wholesale accounts, and one person can train the whole team,” Gaz explains.
“We’ve Not Deleted the Skill—We’ve Changed It” - Accessible Roasting for Everyone
Traditionally, coffee roasting in the heart of UK city centers was unthinkable, but Bellwether’s flexibility has made this possible. “What really interested us with Bellwether,” Gaz says, “is how the model works with multiple satellite roasteries. It made finding new sites all of a sudden so much easier.” Traditional roasters need chimneys and large spaces, which often push roasteries to the outskirts of town, but Bellwether’s setup opened up new possibilities. “The thought of not having to put any EVAC in…we could go to a shopping center, a garden center, anywhere we want.” Now, Recent Beans can continue to expand to high-traffic areas, bringing fresh, locally roasted coffee closer to their customers.
This flexibility has not only enabled rapid expansion into new locations but has also made coffee roasting an accessible craft for all staff members, including part-timers like 16-year-old Kaitlyn, who can now roast with confidence. “She loves that she can roast,” says Gaz, noting how user-friendly and accessible the process has become. "The boost in morale we've seen from the staff using it day-to-day is awesome!"
Initially, some staff were hesitant, fearing automation might reduce skill requirements. But Barry clarifies, “We’ve not deleted the skill. We’ve changed the skill into developing the profile rather than just following the curve.” The roaster’s automation has also freed up the more experienced staff, who were previously tied to monitoring roasting curves, to focus on things they enjoy, like cupping, profile development, and supporting wholesale customers. The result? “Our consistency has got far better. We don’t miss a beat… there isn’t a bad batch out there.”
“A Carbon-Negative Cup of Coffee” – Building a Sustainable Future
From the beginning, Recent Beans has been committed to sustainability. Gaz reflects on their journey and how transitioning from a gas-powered roaster to Bellwether’s electric roasters was a significant step forward for their business. “When we opened Wakefield, we knew we wanted to move away from [fossil fuels]. Now with the Bellwether, having the electric, closed environment story is fantastic for us.” Their vision goes beyond the roaster; Recent Beans implemented a reusable tub system for wholesale deliveries and encourages retail customers to bring their own containers by offering discounts. “Rather than using single-use packaging for wholesale accounts, we use two-kilo tubs, which we deliver in electric vehicles,” Gaz explains.
Recent Beans’ ambition for a sustainable, low-impact roastery reflects a commitment not just to coffee quality but also to reducing their environmental footprint. "We want to achieve a carbon-negative cup of coffee,” Barry shares. “We think with the Bellwether's well-sourced electric and potentially offsetting emissions all the way down to a cup of coffee, we could make a carbon-negative cup of coffee at a specialty level, which would be quite a fun thing to do."
Beyond that, Recent Beans efforts also support sustainable practices, as the higher price paid for specialty beans allows farmers to reinvest in quality and responsible farming methods. Barry explains “We want to be able to tell a story behind the coffee, not only in the sustainability model, but also be able to trace it back to within 10 to 20 hectares, and try and be as transparent about the coffee that we're using and the journey that that coffee is taking as possible.” These practices align with their mission to reduce waste and create a positive environmental impact, proving that great coffee can also be green.
Roasting a Better Future
Recent Bean’s partnership with Bellwether exemplifies what’s possible when passion meets innovation. From Wakefield to Castleford, Barry and Gaz aren’t just roasting coffee—they’re redefining what it means to be a sustainable, community-focused micro-roastery.
Looking ahead, Recent Beans plan to continue expanding their network of micro-roasteries, bringing fresh, ethically sourced specialty coffee to more people, all while preserving that personal connection. “We’re really proud to see the general quality of coffee improve in the area,” says Gaz. With Bellwether, they’re proving that local, sustainable, and quality-driven coffee can have a lasting impact—one roast at a time.
