Are winning medals really that important ?
Simple answer is NO.
Unlike the wine industry that has been running competitive events for nearly 50 years, the competition scene for coffee roasting really only evolved over the last 15 years.
But whilst it may have started well after wine competitions, coffee roasting competitions well and truly peaked around the 2012 - 2017 period.
In the last 5 or 6 years, there has been a significant decline in interest levels by coffee brands to compete in the roasting events.
These days, competitions barely raise an eyebrow. Nobody inside the industry cares who won and there's a very good reason why the industry has turned it's back on competitive events.
Bottom line is, there are so many simple ways the coffee roasting competitions are manipulated by entrants substituting expensive and exotic coffees for their everyday offerings.
Unfortunately, that practice has been rife for a long time and it's also literally impossible to regulate despite being so easy to detect.
Just like so many other coffee brands, we also decided at the end of 2016 to discontinue participation in commercial coffee competitions.
The organizers of these events prey on the insecurities of coffee brand owners by handing out an excessive number of medals to help "promote" the event.
One of the more popular and well know coffee events even gives out medals for submitting an entry, e.g. 400+ Bronze medals offered in a single event. Seriously, that's a joke, winning a bronze medal for posting a pack of coffee to an event address and paying an entry fee.
Looking beyond the awards
We have been proud to receive awards for our substantially engineered blends and our precisely roasted Single Origin coffees. Those wins were achieved before the widespread "bait and switch" routines so often used in events over the last 5 years.
We are also proud to be event champions - an honor bestowed on the "best" roaster.
Winning with coffees we roast everyday and ship fresh to our customers around Australia from our Melbourne coffee facility.
Our award winning coffees are the "real deal" products you can buy from us fresh roasted any day of the week at the most competitive pricing.