Glasgow Coffee Festival drew record crowds this year
The festival, founded in 2014 by Lisa Lawson, is now Scotland's biggest coffee event and a key date in the UK's specialty coffee calendar.
(Image: Supplied)
Read more: David Attenborough and Eurovision to hit big screen at Glasgow cinema
Thanks to the newly opened Clyde Market Halls, this year's event featured more exhibitors, workshops, and attendees than ever before.
They were treated to the final of the SCA UK Cup Tasters Championship, with Will Greavner, of Butterworths Coffee, crowned winner.
He will now represent the UK at the World Championships in Geneva this June.
Meanwhile, Cairngorm Coffee took home the title of Roast Hero, winning the peer-assessed competition against roasters from throughout Scotland.
The festival also celebrated a special milestone: the 40th anniversary of the espresso martini, marked with a session hosted by Bea Bradsell, daughter of the drink's legendary creator Dick Bradsell.
In spite of a difficult year for the global coffee trade, with green coffee prices hitting record highs, the festival continued to emphasise the importance of sustainability.
It remains completely single-use cup-free, due to partnerships with Borrow Cup, Reposit, and environmental charity Hubbub, part of a city-wide campaign to promote reuse.
Since adopting the policy in 2018, the festival has prevented tens of thousands of disposable cups from reaching landfill.
Coffee grounds from the festival were also collected and repurposed by Revive Eco, a Glasgow-based company which transforms coffee waste into sustainable alternatives.
Last week, the event was crowned Best Sustainable Event at the recent Scottish Event Awards.
(Image: Supplied)
Read more: Glasgow's unsung WWII heroes honoured for bravery
Lisa Lawson, founder of B Corp Dear Green Coffee Roasters, said: "We've built this festival to celebrate Scotland's incredible coffee scene, which continues to punch above its weight on the world stage, and to prove that events of this scale can be run responsibly.
"From composting and active travel to partnerships with social enterprises, it's all designed to show what's possible when you put values first.
"Sustainability is absolutely at the heart of everything we do."
Looking ahead, Lisa believes the festival offers many reasons to be hopeful for the future.
She said: "Prices are going up, and that's not something the industry can absorb without consequences.
"The global cost of raw coffee is at an all-time high.
"It's affecting producers, roasters, cafés — everyone in the value chain.
"But what I saw this weekend gives me hope.
"We had record numbers through the door, people asking the right questions, willing to taste new things, and hungry to learn.
"Glasgow's coffee culture is growing and evolving simultaneously.
"Meeting the people at the festival, I know this industry will survive and thrive — because so many people continue to do things properly, even when things get hard."
This year's festival was supported by sponsors including Dear Green, La Marzocco, Oatly, Mossgiel Farm, Brew It Group, Brewed By Hand, The Social Hub, Story Shop, and BWT.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
12-07-2025
- Times
Keely Hodgkinson still sidelined nearly a year after Olympic gold
Keely Hodgkinson has been forced to withdraw from the Novuna London Athletics Meet next weekend because of the injury issues that have so far disrupted her season. Hodgkinson has not raced since clinching Olympic 800m gold in Paris 11 months ago after suffering a series of hamstring and back issues. And while the 23-year-old has returned to full training and remains hopeful of competing at the world championships in Tokyo in September, she is not ready for a Diamond League contest over two laps on July 19. A statement from her management team said: 'The London meet has come slightly too soon in her return to competition. Together with her team, she has made the decision to delay her season opener by a few more weeks to ensure she is fully race-ready. 'Her priority remains arriving at the World Championships in Tokyo this September in peak form, and this decision supports that long-term goal. 'Her focus is now on completing a solid block of training and opening her 2025 campaign later this month.' The financial recovery of British athletics has continued with a new five-year broadcast deal with the BBC. The agreement struck between BBC Sport and Athletic Ventures, the new partnership that includes UK Athletics, London Marathon Events and the Great Run Company, does not compare to the £3million-a-year contract that ran until 2020. But UKA has even been forced to cover production costs for the broadcast of its main events since then and the deal certainly reduces that financial burden, with a small amount of rights revenue also now part of the agreement, which runs until 2029. Research published last month said that athletics was among the sports to have experienced a growth in popularity among 18 to 34-year-olds and the BBC will use its TV and digital platforms to cover the Diamond League event in London as well as the UK indoor and outdoor championships. The news follows the announcement of a new multimillion pound sponsor, Novuna, for the London Athletics Meet on July 19 as well as the British team, and further improves the financial situation for the UKA after what has been a difficult few years. In 2023 the governing body announced losses of £3.7million, with that figure reduced to £1.2million last year. Jack Buckner, the UKA chief executive, said: 'This five-year deal is testament to our long-term vision and the proven appetite for athletics in this country. In an increasingly competitive sports market where broadcast opportunities can be short term or uncertain, this extended partnership with BBC sport provides exciting continuity for the sport, our athletes and our fans. 'The BBC remains the gold standard in reach and coverage, and this agreement ensures British athletics will continue to have a strong, consistent platform to engage millions of viewers across the UK.'
BBC News
16-06-2025
- BBC News
Ukraine: Why it has one of the most digital governments
Rounding a corner in Kyiv on 24 Feb 2022, Oleksandr Bornyakov remembers driving into a gun battle. It was day one of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Russian saboteurs were fighting with Ukrainian security forces in the centre of the Ukrainian capital."There is shooting, cars are burning, armoured vehicles are burning... when we eventually passed... there were a lot of bodies."As a government minister he had been ordered to drive hundreds of kilometres west and continue his work in a safer location. Beginning in 2019, Bornykov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, had been managing the shift of Ukraine's government services to a new app called Diia (the Ukrainian word for action).The idea was that citizens could access everything they needed from their mobile phones; driving licences, marriage certificates, house deeds, and much more. They started with driver's licences in 2019, which was quite popular, but the Diia app got a boost during the pandemic, when Covid certificates were added. "This gave another maybe two or three million people," says the war Diia has continued to the app hosts 40 government services, including tax payment, car registration and marriage applications. Perhaps more fun - Ukrainians can make local selections for Eurovision via the app, including selecting national jury members and choosing the national representative. Additionally, 30 documents are available on the app; Bornykov, flicked through some of his for me including his gun licence and car insurance. There is also a Diia portal, which can be accessed via a browser on a computer, which has 130 services for citizens and total Diia has 22.7 million this, according to Bornyakov, makes Ukraine one of the leading countries when it comes to digital government services - in his opinion putting Ukraine ahead of Estonia, which is well known for its digital government."I haven't seen anybody else doing better than us, except maybe Saudi Arabia, and this both relates to number of users and and the approach." How has Ukraine been able to make such progress, despite the disruption of Covid and amid, for the last three years, fighting off Russian invaders?Part of it is having the right workforce, according to Bornyakov. He says that for the past 20 years Ukraine has been a popular destination for companies looking to outsource IT projects. He estimates that there are 300,000 software developers in Ukraine, many of whom have worked on complex projects for big international companies. "There's a lot of technical and experienced engineers that can do brilliant things," he are also not as expensive as elsewhere in the world. So, he estimates that between five and 10 million dollars was spent on developing Diia. Hiring software developers in the UK would cost five or 10 times as much, he says. David Eaves is associate professor of digital government at University College London, and has studied efforts by governments all over the world to digitise their says the key to Ukraine's success was work done prior to building the app. Using software similar to that used by Estonia, Ukraine created a data exchange, which made it easy for data flow from government departments and organisations. The Diia app was then added on top of the data exchange."If you have this flexibility of moving data around, it becomes much easier to build new services, because rather than asking citizens for the same information all over again, you can simply request their permission to access it," says Prof when applying for a benefit, users don't have to re-enter their address, place of birth, martial status, and their income could be checked against their tax records. Not only does this reduce the administrative burden, but it means the government doesn't have to design a system to recollect, store and process this information all over again. That flexibility allowed Ukraine to add new services to cope with the challenges of war."We actually introduced around 15 different services related to the to the war," says Mr example users could apply for compensation if their property was damaged or destroyed. Citizens could also report the location of Russian troops through the Eaves also points out that Ukraine's war with Russia has spurred government to modernise."When you are on a wartime footing, there's a sense of urgency. The urgency of delivering the service becomes more important than rules that sometimes trip up bureaucracies," he put Ukraine among the countries leading the effort to digitise government services, according to Prof thinks Denmark is probably leading the way with both a solid infrastructure, range of services and well designed user interface. So what does the future hold? Ukraine is developing AI systems which Bornyakov says have the potential to make interactions with government sees AI guiding a user through the various steps to get what they want."We want to redefine the approach to government services," he Prof Eaves is excited about the possibility of AI in government services, he advises need to be sure they have reliable data to train the AI and then ensure the system can learn what the right answers are."AI is like having a Ferrari. You can do amazing things, but you better have good roads. Pretty hard to drive a Ferrari on a dirt road, right?"
The Guardian
04-06-2025
- The Guardian
Will Ferrell to bring Eurovision musical to Broadway
Will Ferrell is set to turn his 2020 comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga into a Broadway musical. The actor starred in and co-wrote the Netflix film with Harper Steele and the pair will develop the show with Anthony King, whose Broadway credits include Beetlejuice and Gutenberg! The Musical!. There is no timeline yet to the production. 'We are more than excited to bring Eurovision to Broadway,' Ferrell said in a statement. 'The stage musical is a perfect place to continue our celebration of all the things we love about this amazing and unifying song competition.' The film was released on Netflix in June 2020 and followed a pair of Icelandic singers, played by Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, as they took part in Eurovision. It received an Oscar nomination for best original song. It received mixed reviews upon release with the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw calling it 'a strange, tonally misfiring movie'. 'This is a stellar team for what I am sure will be an equally stellar adaption of a film the world loved,' said Martin Green, CBE director of the Eurovision Song Contest. 'Our aim always is to bring the joy of the Eurovision Song Contest to more people globally – especially as we approach our 70th edition in 2026.' The show will be directed by Alex Timber who is currently behind the Tony-nominated Bobby Darin musical Just in Time. This year's Eurovision Song Contest was watched by 166 million people worldwide. Ferrell and Steele recently starred in the acclaimed documentary Will & Harper, a road trip documentary about their friendship. Ferrell also starred in comedy You're Cordially Invited earlier this year and is currently filming comedy Judgment Day with Zac Efron and Regina Hall.
