Above: Kate Heath receives her award from Costa’s National Account Manager Luke Rutter (left) and and Warren Haskins.

The Haskins group have demonstrated their belief that garden centres should serve great coffee by holding their first barista competition.

Sixteen baristas in four teams, one from each Haskins centre, locked horns in a brew-off hosted at the Southampton store. The contest, sponsored by Costa, whose coffee is served in all branches, was designed to encourage high standards of coffee making. The participants had already competed against their catering team colleagues at their own centres.

Twenty year old Kate Heath from Thornhill, Southampton, won the Barista Of The Year trophy, having completed a 20 question quiz covering Costa, Haskins, passion, pride and technical factors.  Judges Carl Hadfield (Haskins group catering manager and Luke Rutter, Costa Coffee’s national account manager, scored participants on their skills, technique and delivering the brand standard.

Carl Hadfield said the standard was high, even against the stop watch: “Brand standards, product quality, speed of service combined with personality and customer interaction were the key values we judged the competitors by. It was no easy task to decide who would go on to the final. Kate performed professionally and calmly throughout the evening, every time delivering great looking drinks made perfectly to the brand standard.”

Kate, who has been a member of the restaurant team at the Haskins West End centre for three years since leaving Itchen college,  said that she was delighted to win the trophy, iPad, and special uniform recognising her achievement.

“I was very nervous but enjoyed the experience. I’m amazed I came top considering the high standard of the competing baristas who, like myself, make hundreds of coffees every day,” she said .

Haskins inroduced Costa coffee in 2008 and serve more than 1.2 million hot drinks a year.