We are fortunate in Australia to enjoy good quality espresso available almost everywhere, particularly our capital cities.
But what you may not realize is that businesses like cafes that compete with dozens of nearby outlets are doing it really tough.
For cafes in popular areas, they are effectively "slicing the pie" with shrinking portions as the number of available coffee drinkers does not increase at the same rate as additional coffee outlets closing or opening.
A good example of this is the Melbourne, Australia. Some of the cafes we supplied in the city have up to 40+ competitors to contend within 100 m radius.
Cafes aspiring to be leaders in their location need an edge to differentiate themselves from the competition.
Whether that's higher quality, lower costs, improved consistency or the latest specialty coffee innovations applied to your coffee solutions.
The days of over-roasted, low-grade coffees no longer meet the requirements of our Australian cafe scene.
Consumers tastes are also shifting and evolving towards sweeter and lighter styles.
Loyalty to coffee brands has been declining consistently for many years. Today, there is little to bind a coffee drinker to a brand, or outlet.
With more than 2,000 coffee brands available, consumers are spoiled for choice. In fact, it's now becomes very confusing for coffee drinkers with so many new and unknown brands entering the market.
Everything must be on point, particularly the customer experience that may also include speed and convenience which carrying equal importance to flavor and price.
Some coffee drinkers are experimental. They will regularly try different brands to search for their "holy grail". Even when they might come close to finding it, they will continue to switch brands to keep it interesting.
In Melbourne, many of the most successful cafes have a similar or common formula.
They all purchase their equipment separately to their roasted coffee beans.
Why ?
Because it provides these cafe owners with incredible flexibility to use whatever coffee beans they desire.
Coffee brands supplying the wholesale cafe market will always try to use "bundling" as a way to "lock in" their cafe customers. For many cafe owners, this may provide some peace of mind around equipment reliability.
But this bundling creates a rigid environment as the roaster will not permit cafe customers to use other brand coffees on their equipment. Whilst this may not be evident upfront in your discussions with your current coffee supplier, wait until they find out you have used someone else's beans in their grinder. Boom.
So we cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of maintaining your independence in a competitive cafe environment that enables purchasing of beans from "whoever is best" at any time.
If you are looking for a unique or individual coffee to give you that edge over your competition, contact us and see how you we can help improve your espresso coffee offering.
Magnificent coffee is about balance - having the best beans and then using your expert skills to prepare (brew or extract) a perfect cup.
Our role is to supply you with the very best beans and our focus is purely on quality roasted coffee.