About Wide Awake Coffee
Genuine, exciting and fresh! This is exactly the case with the Belgian roastery Wide Awake Coffee, which curates and roasts some of the finest coffees in Brussels, with the aim to make specialty coffee accessible to everyone.
Wide Awake was founded in 2019 by Rutger & Senina after a chance encounter in London. Bonding over coffee, music and a love for the wonderful chaos that is Brussels, Wide Awake was born as a passion project. From the start we set out to create a positive impact business that would fuel independent cafés and coffee enthusiasts with unpretentious high quality coffee. We wanted to make specialty coffee inclusive and bring it to a wider audience. We believe our work is only meaningful if it has a positive impact, locally and at origin.
Today their coffee is being served in some of the best coffee bars and restaurants in Brussels and beyond. They are also caffeinating many small creative offices. Their Atelier at Rue de Flandre 185 is the heart of all their activities. It houses the roastery, quality control lab, warehouse, training space and office. It’s a beautiful space with a homely buzzing vibe, designed and built by local Brussels craftspeople. They source their coffee outside from distributors and cooperatives that avoid exploitative market systems and instead pay high premiums, anywhere from 2-7x the “fair-trade” FOB price. Their partners are well established in coffee-growing countries, support and advise local communities, and help roasters ensure fair remuneration for the work of farmers, cooperatives, washing stations and all those involved in the production of specialty coffee. They supply their coffee to wholesale customers in reusable buckets and use 100% recyclable CO2 neutral packaging for retail bags.
