History
Matthew Algie (born 1810 in Greenock, Scotland, died 1902) was a grocer who sold tea that had been imported to Scotland on the Clyde Clippers. He established Matthew Algie the tea blending and wholesaling business in 1864. For around 80 years, and through two World Wars, the business sold tea and spices to retailers in the Glasgow area. In 1950 the company, then known as Algie’s, started selling coffee to post-war Glasgow, along with vending services. In 1974 “Algie’s” began selling coffee machines for offices, restaurants and hotels, replacing instant coffee with roast and ground coffee.
In the 1980s the business went through a period of rapid expansion, going UK-wide and adding bulk-brew coffee machines for the catering sector to their portfolio. In 1989 the company introduced the first espresso machine to its range. In 1995, Managing Director, David Williamson, a descendent of Matthew Algie, visited Portland Oregon and returned to restructure the company with a view to driving the espresso revolution in the UK. In 1997 Matthew Algie introduced the UK’s first Fairtrade espresso beans, followed in 2004 by the world’s first triple-certified espresso (Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Organic)In 2008, David Williamson died unexpectedly at the age of 42. The David Williamson Rwanda Foundation was set up in David’s memory.
In 2010 the company underwent its biggest rebranding exercise to date.
Read more about this topic: Matthew Algie
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)