The ECS+COHO Interview Series: Tom Clark, Founder, Coutume

Each week leading up to the ECS+COHO Expo 2025, 24-26 November at the JW Marriott in Berlin, World Coffee Portal will present exclusive interviews with influential voices in Europe’s coffee and hospitality industries

Founded in Paris by Tom Clark in 2011, Coutume is one of France’s original specialty coffee success stories.

Coutume has made its mission to reveal the intricacies of individual terroirs, express their unique qualities to the fullest and share them with its customers. In doing so, Coutume, meaning ‘custom’, has reshaped coffee expectations in France and continues to play a leading role in the country’s burgeoning specialty coffee movement.

Today, Coutume operates 16 locations across Paris and its region, including high street, collaboration store and corporate coffee shop locations. An imminent re-opening of a new flagship café inside of the Galeries Lafayette will introduce a new hybrid concept, marrying specialty coffee with high-end pastries through a partnership with François Daubinet, a prominent French pastry chef.  

Coutume also supplies more than 350 company and HORECA clients while creating and actively supporting high-quality coffee programmes.

In this exclusive interview, Australia-born Tom Clark discusses his remarkable entrepreneurial journey, why specialty coffee has a unique opportunity in France and the importance for operators driven by a passion for coffee to hone their business acumen.

What has been your biggest learning as a business leader in coffee?

That coffee has immense power to shape the lives of those who work in and around it, as well as the planet upon which it grows. Starting in this industry in my mid-20s, I had grand ideas about shaping the specialty coffee culture in France. With some more experience and a greater understanding of purpose, I’m convinced today that our industry has a unique opportunity, and moreover an obligation, to positively shape the future of coffee.

The cumulative result of each decision and each action made by coffee professionals and their consumers the world over can truly move mountains.

What advice would you give your younger self when starting out in specialty coffee industry?

 To invest time early on learning and perfecting business basics. Many of us, myself included, got involved in this industry because of a passion for coffee and its wider culture. This is a great source of motivation and energy, which helps you work through the initial challenges you face when constructing a business on the back of this passion. 

Looking back, I’d have benefited from spending more time in those initial years to better understand and track business metrics. After all, it’s a complex business involving lots of moving parts, which requires forethought and solid management. Also, you can have a much bigger impact once you get a grasp of those business fundamentals.

How do you stay entrepreneurial in an increasingly competitive and corporate industry?,

By staying laser-focused on delivering our vision to the market. No matter the level of competition and market forces at play, the one thing that will always differentiate your brand from others is your core vision. Take time to clearly define this at the start, and it will provide limitless inspiration for unique products and actions as well as serve to reinforce the authenticity of your brand.

 What are the biggest challenges – or risks – when scaling a premium coffee brand?

 Retaining your company’s culture across multiple locations and via a growing team base. As you grow, it is essential to build processes, training programmes and management structures that provide the necessary foundations to deliver your brand promise. Also, I’d recommend scaling back some of your activities, focusing on the core ones that are essential to your brand.

 Do you foresee more M&A activity in the coffee & hospitality space? If so, which channels and segments are primed for significant investment?

 Absolutely. The coffee market has recently undergone some fundamental changes with significant increases in commodity prices and an outlook that questions the ‘business as usual’ approach. Beyond the markets, consumers are demanding transparency, quality and fair value. 

 I anticipate that some of the larger coffee players will look to the specialty market to innovate and accelerate their evolving models via targeted M&A activity. This could provide an opportunity to scale the impact of specialty coffee. Moreover, coffee shop culture is very much a mainstay of modern culture and truly global, providing significant growth opportunities for the best in the market.

 I also anticipate investment in complementary product categories, such as home barista equipment and direct-to-consumer solutions, as technology advancements enable better quality and services for the home coffee market.