Old Spike Roastery

Childhood friends Richard Robinson and Cemal Ezel opened Old Spike in Peckham in 2015 as the first specialty coffee roastery in the UK built as a social enterprise from the ground up. Robinson had discovered specialty coffee while living near Blue Bottle's original Brooklyn roastery in New York, and Ezel was studying at the School for Social Entrepreneurs when the idea took shape. The business commits 65 percent of profits to training and employing Londoners experiencing homelessness, pairing barista and roasting skills with support around mental health, housing and getting back into work.

Ten years on, Old Spike roasts more than 100 tonnes of coffee a year and says it has supported over 350 trainees through the program, one of whom, Lucy, became the company's first employee with lived experience of homelessness and has since been profiled in the press covering the shop. Ezel went on to found Change Please, a separate homeless employing coffee cart venture partnered with the Big Issue, while the original Peckham Rye cafe keeps roasting and serving from the same corner it started on.