Ian Steel: Taking his best shot

Sitting in the late autumn sunshine in the imposing and impressive courtyard of Lancaster Castle, Ian Steel shares a socially distanced brew and talks coffee and coronavirus.

The 62-year-old ‘Keeper of the Flame’ at Atkinsons Coffee Roasters explains how he and his family kept that flame burning when the pandemic threatened to extinguish it for good.

Atkinsons, a supplier to hospitality businesses across the North, was set to hit the £2m turnover mark this year but things changed dramatically and very quickly. Ian says: “When lockdown was announced on March 23, 90 per cent of our income disappeared overnight.”

The 10 per cent that remained was internet sales through its website. Over the next weeks and months that was to dramatically increase by up to 600 per cent.