Press release -
Virgin Trains and the Little Coffee Bag Co brighten up your morning
Virgin Trains and the Little Coffee Bag Company have joined forces to give a truly amazing caffeine kick to customers travelling in First Class along the West Coast Main Line.
It has been two years since Carrie Bate came up with the idea of ‘coffee in a bag’, a hassle-free, easily transportable fresh blend.
An entrepreneur after our own heart, she developed her three amazingly delicious blends, which help a number of communities in Africa where the particular beans used by Carrie originate from.
Fast forward to 2013, and it didn’t take much convincing to get us on board: Carrie has created a special blend for Virgin Trains’ customers using coffee sourced from Tanzania and in true Virgin spirit, she gives back 10% of her profit to communities in Africa to help to build schools and shelters for young people.
Rob Taylor, Retail and First Class Development Manager at Virgin Trains, said: ‘We are very excited to be introducing a new coffee in first class to enhance our customers experience. It is exciting to be providing not only a high quality coffee but supporting an up and coming business.’
Speaking of the new deal, Carrie said: “When I first sent samples of The Little Coffee Bag to Virgin in February of this year, I never would have imaged that I would now have a business partnership with them. I am absolutely thrilled to have joined forces with Virgin Trains - we have now been working together for 6 months and it has been a brilliant journey to this point. To be working with such an internationally successful company is like a dream come true for me and has been the highlight of my year. I am very much looking forward to the exciting opportunities that this partnership will most certainly bring both businesses in the future."
So from Monday 16 December 2013, if you travel First Class with Virgin Trains, don’t forget to kick back, relax, and enjoy the coffee!
Little Coffee Bag Co Notes to Editors:
The idea for the little coffee bag co was first born in August 2011 and was the brainchild of Midlands based entrepreneur Carrie Bate.
The little coffee bag is very similar to a tea bag, but actually contains 10g of roasted ground coffee. All of the coffee is 100% Arabica coffee – made from only the very best Arabica beans from around the world.
The filtration web used to create the bag itself has only recently been created and allows perfect infusion to take place.
The little coffee bag has currently been launched in three blends – original, Brazilian de-caffeinated and the more luxurious Jamaican Blue Mountain.
Website: www.thelittlecoffeebagco.com
Facebook: The Little Coffee Bag Company
Twitter: @littlecoffeebag
Topics
- Partnerships, cooperations
Regions
- England
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Virgin Trains has revolutionised rail travel by creating a high speed, high frequency service that has cut journey times and made rail journeys more comfortable. It has operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997, serving key UK cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Glasgow.
Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group (VRG), which is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach. The Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded VRG a franchise contract, which started on 9 December 2012 and will run for up to 23 months. The DfT announced on 26 March 2013 a programme for letting future franchises, with the long-term West Coast franchise expected to start in April 2017.
Virgin Trains has been recognised in numerous awards. In October 2013 Business Traveller magazine readers voted the company the Best UK Domestic Rail Operator for the seventh year running. In 2011 the company was named Best Rail Operator in the Group Leisure Awards (which it also won in 2009 and 2010). In 2011 Virgin Trains won the British Quality Foundation's Achievement Award for Customer Satisfaction.
Customers consistently rate the company the top long-distance rail franchise operator, as measured by the National Passenger Survey (NPS) run by industry watchdog Passenger Focus. In the most recent NPS (Spring 2013) overall satisfaction was 92%, equalling our best ever score from the previous survey (Autumn 2012).
Virgin Trains first achieved Investors In People accreditation in 2007 and this was renewed in 2010; the IIP Gold award was achieved in 2011 and again in October 2013. In May 2013 Virgin Trains renewed its accreditation against the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management's (EFQM) Excellence Model, which it originally achieved in May 2011. The company’s Learning and Development team won a National Training Awards 2011 West Midlands award for its Coaching Culture programme.
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