Jim Cregan returned from a trip Australia with a new found taste for iced coffee, and a determination to make it readily available in the UK. 12 years down the line, that passion led to the creation of Jimmy's Iced Coffee, a now hugely recognisable brand that can be spotted in Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Waitrose and a whole host of other huge chains.
Despite enormous growth and huge turnover, the Jimmy's team are still committed to ensuring their brand is sustainable and all their coffee is ethically sourced. Read on to find out a little more about Jimmy's, and how Shiptheory helps them on their mission to fill up fridges around the world with high-quality iced coffee. Click here to check out the Jimmy's website to order yourself some iced coffee!
William Powell
Warehouse Manager
We migrated to Shopify and started using Shiptheory at the same time. We were a little apprehensive that there might be double the headache setting two new systems up at once, but Shiptheory took that headache away. The support and setup from Josh was excellent and it runs really smoothly in the background.
Q: Tell us a little bit about 'Jimmy' and the story so far.
Jim had the idea for Jimmy's while travelling Australia. He came across an Iced Coffee brand and realised no-one was doing something similar over here when he came back to the UK. He then got his sister Suze onboard to help, and they're still both very hands on. Because of that, the team is super close knit and it has a real family feeling about it.
Q: What's the process like of deciding where to source your coffee?
We try to be as responsible as possible in regards to how it's made and produced, and from an environmental standpoint too. It's really important that we're ethically sourcing, so we're Rainforest Alliance certified and are in the process of B Corp certification too.
Q: Your packaging is 'infinitely recyclable' - how important is sustainability to your brand?
We used to use a Tetrapack for our packaging. Jim's a really keen surfer, and one day he found a plastic lid which may have been from his product washed up on the beach. He made the decision there and then to move away from plastic to something more recyclable. We eventually landed on the BottleCan, and as it's aluminium, it can be recycled infinitely. It took a lot of investment to make that change, but we knew we needed to do something about it.
Q: Coffee Cola sticks out as quite unique among your products - tell us a little more about it?
The mission behind Coffee Cola was after our Head of Brand, who had a lot of bar experience, wanted to create a coffee-based drink to use as a mixer. We're currently looking to move it to a canned product, and bring it to the market on mass when we can find someone who can effectively produce it for us.
Q: How does Shiptheory help Jimmy's process orders?
We went through a big shift after looking at our costs and realised that shipping was a big fixed cost. We started looking for a way to automate, and without Shiptheory we'd be doing everything manually. It's been a great cost saving tool for us - we have different criteria for orders for DHL and DPD, and worked out Shiptheory can help save us tons by knowing which shipments to book in and how many we can send together to maximise cost efficiency.
Q: What has been the proudest moment in the Jimmy's journey so far?
One of our proudest moments was definitely moving over to the bottle can. Realising that you're creating litter and taking steps to fix that is really important and you can feel that impact.
Q: Would you recommend Shiptheory to other retailers?
100% - it's enabled us to make important cost savings, especially in these hard times when everyone needs to look at their cost. They've been super responsive, both in setup and any issues we've had are resolved quickly in the live chat. I don't have to think or worry about it, it just works quietly in the background.
Q: Do you have any specific growth goals over the next year?
Our biggest goal is to continue our aim to be in all the best fridges in the world!