Before 2016, all Kenneth Thomas knew about coffee was the “Folgers” in his cup.
But after gaining an interest in the caffeinated beverage, he turned his morning brew into a coffee roasting business, eventually building the roastery into a cafe, which he opened June 2 at 216 Industrial Park Road.
Thomas, owner of Umble Coffee Co., first became interested in coffee after his mother, Faye, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Upon research, he found the drink had medicinal properties that could help his mother manage, as well as being healthy for everyone.
“I like coffee and I like beer, and everybody and their mama in 2016 was getting into microbreweries,” Thomas said. “But the other thing was that my mother was passing away from pancreatic cancer, and the further I got into coffee, the more I learned how healthy it is when done correctly. It can be healthier than green tea, red wine, blueberries, acai, and so I thought I would try to figure out coffee.”
Once he decided to open his own roastery, Thomas attended a Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo in Atlanta to learn the ins and outs of the business. He also participated in a roasting workshop in Oregon.
Once he knew how to roast, he bought necessary equipment and a facility off Highway 389, founding Umble Coffee Co. in 2017.
From there, Thomas said his goal was to produce the highest quality grounds of regular and specialty coffee for online customers throughout the country, but he found a stronger market locally.
“We thought that we really wanted to be dominant in the subscription coffee market,” he said. “We found that (online coffee) was a little harder to get into than we thought, but we found it was really easy to get into wholesale specialty coffee. Without doing anything, restaurants, grocery stores, boutiques, bakeries and breakfast places were asking if they could use our coffee.”
After just three years in business, Thomas went from roasting two 5-pound-bag orders of coffee for individual customers in the Golden Triangle to garnering business from Mississippi State University, The University of Mississippi and even Kroger locations, which expected regular orders of 80 5-pound bags.
“It’s been a great collaboration because they were looking for a local coffee roaster, and of course, we’re always looking to grow because the business is a volume game,” Thomas said.
“That has helped stabilize us as a company, and MSU and Ole Miss dining services have both been great partners to work with. It’s fun being able to give coffee to like tens of thousands of college students.”
Thomas also started a podcast, Coffee 101, to expand the business’ mission of educating people about the health benefits of regularly drinking it.
“There’s about three or four really good episodes from season one where we take a deep dive into all of it,” he said. “We talk about benefits for your liver, the benefits for your heart, the benefits for your GI system, but we also go into disadvantages. Although, the advantages to coffee outweigh everything else.”
Thomas then began looking for other ways to expand the operations of his business. In 2022, he found his new location on Industrial Park Road and decided to expand the roastery to accommodate larger orders.
“We had been looking for somewhere to move it and we wanted to try to support our local community,” he said. “We completely gutted it. This place is a lot different than it was, and you won’t find anywhere in Mississippi that’s quite like this.”
Now that Thomas has Umble set up at the new location, he plans to continue working to expand the roastery to accommodate more customers. Thomas also wants to add tours of the roasting operations and roasting classes, as well as add a walking trail to the area just behind the building for patrons to enjoy and relax.
“We would like to be in more grocery stores, more bakeries and breakfast places and we’d like to be dominant in the Southeast,” he said. “… This business is fun, and I really enjoy doing it. To anybody who wants to do something like it, I think you inherently can succeed if you enjoy it.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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