Meet Gemma and Laura, the faces behind Tired Mums Coffee – Wales’s newest Fairtrade coffee company. Gemma and Laura are two tired Mums on a mission to boost the motherhood experience through creating an inclusive community for all.

Their mission is to use coffee as a tool to support the motherhood community, one cup at a time. We love their story and all they are achieving, so we sat down for a chat:

Can you tell us a little bit about who Tired Mums Coffee are?

We’re Gemma and Laura, we’re based in North Wales/Shropshire and our paths first crossed during our NHS careers. 

During our second maternity leave, we noticed a lack of peer support for mums which was particularly extreme at the time due to the impact of the pandemic. We’ve both developed a deep love of coffee, especially since becoming increasingly sleep deprived in recent years! This led us to explore how coffee could be used to make positive change.  From delirious laughter to tears of exhaustion, outings in the fresh air and the odd ‘poonami’, a good cup of coffee has been at the centre of our support. The concept of Tired Mums Coffee was born after many coffee-fuelled brainstorming sessions at soft play centres!

Tired Mums Coffee strives to boost the motherhood experience through great tasting coffee with a purpose. Our vision is to leave a legacy for future mums by improving their experiences of motherhood and encouraging knowledge sharing across generations.

We aim to continue growing a peer support community that is accessible by all and based upon our values – non-judgemental, inclusive, welcoming, and honest. The community is a place to share the highs and support the lows – some days it’s just about survival!

We aim to ensure conversations are happening between mums all over the UK, with one of our coffees in hand! 

Tell us about your coffee

We bring a unique perspective to the coffee market and meaningful support to mums. We’ve developed two delicious signature Fairtrade coffee blends which are both:

• specialty grade
• medium strength and roast
• small batch & convection roasted
• wrapped in recyclable packaging 
• and a % of profits go back to those directly supporting mums

Our 100% arabica Party All Night blend grown in Columbia and Ethiopia is a perfectly balanced blend with the smoothness of milk chocolate and caramel, zest of mandarin and a floral note of Jasmine on the nose. This blend will give you a boost in the morning, especially helpful if you’ve been sleep deprived!

Our Nobody’s Listening To Me blend is Grandma Maggie’s personal favourite! A full-bodied blend with the sweetness of caramel and cocoa and a subtle hint of berries with a long, nutty finish. This vibrant blend is perfect any time of the day and perfectly complements a good conversation.

We love offering tasting samples at events and finding out which of our coffee blends people prefer!

It’s clear that you support Fairtrade, but what made you decide to be a Fairtrade business?

Before we set out on our journey to create our purpose-based brand and develop our coffee blends, we agreed sustainability would one of our top priorities and having a Fairtrade certification was a non-negotiable (as well as recyclable packaging).

This meant sourcing our coffee became trickier, but we persevered, and we’re delighted with the quality and taste of our signature blends. We carefully selected a roastery that puts sustainability at the heart of what they do from how they source coffee beans to how they support local communities. We also work with an amazing mum at the roastery who completely gets our high standards and brand.

We have five children between us, so we always try to do our best for the planet and operate our small business ethically and sustainably. Choosing Fairtrade helps to ensure farmers and workers are treated fairly, they receive a Fairtrade minimum price and have the freedom to choose how to spend their Fairtrade premium, for example to fund projects to better prepare their farms for climate change.

We’re always keen to learn and do more for our planet, we even recycle our coffee grounds in the garden and make facemasks with them! 

How can the public find out more about your work and get involved?

As well as donating a % of our sales (whether we make a profit or not) to organisations that support mums, we are growing our community and providing tools to improve maternal wellbeing. We’d love as many people as possible to join our community, coffee lover or not!

The best way to find out first about our offers and events is by signing up to our mailing list and following us on social media. Examples of what we currently offer include:

• a free virtual chat series with expert guests who provide advice on wellbeing for parents
• donating our specialty coffee to groups that support mums – an upgrade from instant to luxury, ground coffee
• launching our #mumsarefine campaign on social media, encouraging mums to share their stories and help other mums feel less alone
• partnering with like-minded organisations who share similar values on sustainability and wider corporate social responsibility

Although our mission is based on boosting the motherhood community, we aim for our coffee to be enjoyed by everyone and it makes a perfect self-care purchase or gift.

Further information on our coffee and exciting gift range (including our recently launched ‘Espresso Mumtini’ candles) can be found on our website.

And to hear about our latest news first and receive a welcome discount plus exclusive special offers, you can sign up to our newsletter.

We are developing lots of exciting plans and can’t wait to see where our Tired Mums Coffee journey takes us. We’re working on several new partnerships, expanding our product range, planning events, and spreading the word further about our mission so we can support more mums. We’d also love to hear from any potential stockists or partners who support Fairtrade and/or mums!

So that is Tired Mum’s Coffee. Now you understand why we are obsessed with their company, and we hope you will be too.