GCR Nov 2020

November/December 2020

TRIPLE THREAT

Why no one is immune to climate change, coronavirus, and low coffee prices

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

The ICO highlights the importance of global coffee value chains

EVOLUTION OF AUTOMATION Adding value in a world of convenience

COMING OF AGE

Timor-Leste makes a global impact far beyond its share of coffee production

NATIONAL

TREASURE

JUAN VALDEZ PRESIDENT CAMILA ESCOBAR ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADING COLOMBIA’S COFFEE GROWERS’ BRAND AND TURNING CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES www.gcrmag.com

CONTENTS November/December 2020

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IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURES

10 A NATIONAL TREASURE

Juan Valdez President Camila Escobar on captivating the world with the best of Colombian coffee and supporting the next generation of farmers

14 A NEW PERSPECTIVE

The International Coffee Organization reflects on the 2020 edition of its Coffee Development Report and the global coffee value chain

18 TRIPLE THREAT

How climate change, coronavirus, and low coffee prices are impacting the supply chain and why no one is immune

22 RECORD AFTER RECORD

Why the Cup of Excellence competition is seeing the highest prices in its 20-year history despite the global pandemic

AUTOMATION

36 ON THE RIGHT PATH

Bühler stands at the forefront of automation in coffee processing, building entirely automated production lines with auto-correct profile control

38 A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

Cropster and fabscale use data collection and digital analysis to predict roast outcomes

COVER STORY

10

A NATIONAL TREASURE

Juan Valdez and Procafecol President Camila Escobar on embracing challenges with passion, leadership and strong communication.

40 HOME RUN

32 BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUM

42 EXPLORING LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES

34 IT JUST MAKES SENSE

How De’Longhi Maestosa provides consumers with the ability to reproduce barista-quality coffee

Neuhaus Neotech applies its skills in hot air roasting to traditional drum roasting technology

Eversys and Iovent join forces to put self-service coffee in the spotlight thanks to algorithms and a market based on convenience and great coffee

A clean machine is integral to unleashing full flavour potential and Cafetto products provide an effective solution

44

Timor-Leste is having a global impact that goes beyond its share of production

COOL CUSTOMERS

Franke’s Specialty Beverage Station helps businesses stay on top of latest trends with its versatile platform

46 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

Melitta offers fully automatic coffee solutions shaped by the demands of its customers

48 HAVE IT YOUR WAY

How and why certain coffee and machine concepts are developed at Schaerer

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WMF AROUND THE GLOBE

Putting the customer first with the roll-out of a consistent global service concept

PROFILE

30 A NEW FRONTIER

Why Victoria Arduino’s new one-group E1 Prima espresso machine is setting a new standard with infinite opportunities

ORIGIN

26 COMING OF AGE

OPINION

52 THE ART OF PUNCTUATION

Eversys Chief Commercial Officer Kamal Bengougam on the crossroads of life, and why you’re never too old to script a new chapter

“OUR CHALLENGES ARE OUR GREATEST OPPORTUNITIES. WE ARE A COMPANY THAT WAS BORN TO BE SOCIAL. WE WERE BORN TO BE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY AND TO BE ECONOMICALLY VIABLE.” Camila Escobar

JUAN VALDEZ PRESIDENT

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LAST WORD

58 RETAIL GOES VIRAL

A Mintel report suggests how coffee brands can take advantage of COVID-19generated trends

REGULARS 04 06 54 56

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E DITOR’S NOTE N E WS DRI P BY DRI P DIARY DASH BOARD MARKETP LACE N OV E M B E R /D EC E M B E R 2 0 2 0 | GCR

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EDITOR’S NOTE Global Coffee Report

PUBLISHER Christine Clancy christine.clancy@primecreative.com.au EDITOR Sarah Baker sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au JOURNALIST Ethan Miller ethan.miller@primecreative.com.au

THE POWER OF ADDING VALUE WHAT A COMPLICATED YEAR IT’S been. For some, 2020 was destructive and devastating, and for others, opportunistic.

While the world still comes to terms with how to live with a very active virus, what’s been impressive to see is the leadership of many steering their businesses into new territories.

Our ‘new norm’ is largely being driven

by Zoom meetings and the advance of automation and e-commerce chains, allowing businesses to safely manufacture and deliver products into the hands of consumers.

In a chat with Eversys Chief Commercial Officer Kamal Bengougam from the company’s Swiss headquarters, he reinforced that technology should be “an enhancer” and not a “dominant force” in our lives. The day it controls our narrative is the day technology takes over, and we can never let that happen.

We still want to experience a cheery greeting and smile from our favourite local barista, and indulge in their knowledge and expertise. At the same time, if technology can help evolve service, add value, and be used for good – to reduce energy savings or initiate safe, contactless transactions – it will only help evolve the industry.

Juan Valdez President Camila Escobar is also a strong believer in adding value to the community she serves. From an early age, Escobar, this edition’s cover story, wanted to make an impact on her country, women in particular. The stars aligned to make that contribution through her work as Procafecol President.

She is passionate about working with

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vulnerable women and youth in farming communities and believes her role as a female leader can add value to 540,000 Colombian coffee growers.

In the past month, David Attenborough has also become an unlikely person to add value to my life. While still enduring Melbourne’s strict lockdown, I indulged in A Life On Our Planet, deemed one of the most important documentaries of the year. In it, Attenborough depicts a world suffering due to climate change, deforestation, and poaching.

The coffee world is also suffering.

Sixty per cent of 124 coffee species are at risk of extinction, and suitable producing regions will be no longer by 2050 thanks to rising temperatures.

Organisations such as World Coffee Research and Global Coffee Platform are committed to sustainable initiatives that are helping to preserve coffee production and farming livelihoods. But like Attenborough alluded, this war on climate change, just like the battle with this relentless coronavirus, is not won alone. It will take a collective effort to overcome, but it will undoubtedly add value to our lives, and the generations to come.

Sarah Baker Editor, Global Coffee Report

DESIGN PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Weston michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au ART DIRECTOR Blake Storey blake.storey@primecreative.com.au DESIGN Madeline McCarty, Kerry Pert BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING ACCOUNT MANAGER Courtney Walker courtney.walker@primecreative.com.au CLIENT SUCCESS Ben Griffiths ben.griffiths@primecreative.com.au CONTRIBUTORS Kamal Bengougam PHOTOGRAPHY Studio Kapture HEAD OFFICE Prime Creative Pty Ltd 11-15 Buckhurst Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia p: +61 3 9690 8766 f: +61 3 9682 0044 enquiries@primecreative.com.au www.gcrmag.com SUBSCRIPTIONS +61 3 9690 8766 subscriptions@primecreative.com.au

Global Coffee Report Magazine is available by subscription from the publisher. The rights of refusal are reserved by the publisher.

ARTICLES

All articles submitted for publication become the property of the publisher. The Editor reserves the right to adjust any article to conform with the magazine format.

COPYRIGHT

Global Coffee Report is owned and published by Prime Creative Media. All material in Global Coffee Report Magazine is copyright and no part may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means (graphic, electronic or mechanical including information and retrieval systems) without written permission of the publisher. The Editor welcomes contributions but reserves the right to accept or reject any material. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information Prime Creative Media will not accept responsibility for errors or omissions or for any consequences arising from reliance on information published. The opinions expressed in Global Coffee Report are not necessarily the opinions of, or endorsed by the publisher unless otherwise stated.

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NEWS In brief

NEWS DRIPBYDRIP AMERICAS From October 2019 to August 2020, Colombia, the world’s largest producer of mild washed Arabica, experienced a record production season. It exceeded 13.1 million bags, up 3 per cent compared to the almost 12.8 million bags produced in the same previous period, the National Federation of Coffee Growers September report states. The country’s second harvest of the year is forecast to hit 14 million bags.

See page 10.

The inaugural Ethiopia Cup of Excellence auction in May achieved a record-high average price of US$28 per pound. The top-scoring coffee sold at US$185.10 per pound, which the Alliance for Coffee Excellence says is the highest price ever recorded for an Ethiopian coffee.

Including the National Winner auction in June, the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence raised more than US$1.5 million for participating producers.

See page 22.

A current project of Bühler is the construction of a fully automated coffee factory for a large coffee capsule producer in the United States. The site features two InfinityRoast-3000 systems and two smaller relocated existing roasters, eight grinders, and several packaging lines, with an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes of roasted coffee per year.

See page 36.

A report from market intelligence agency Mintel suggests the at-home coffee market in the US is set to grow by 4.9 per cent this year alone to reach US$15.6 billion, compared to a total of 3.9 per cent growth experienced between 2015 and 2019.

See page 58.

See page 54.

ASIA PACIFIC

In the 1950s, the small nation of Timor-Leste provided a saving grace to the global coffee industry struggling with coffee leaf rust in the form of Hibrido de Timor. It was exported

and bred around the world to create stronger coffee plants.

Coffee cultivation is still important to the Timor-Leste economy. As the nation’s third largest export, as of 2019, the coffee industry supports about 25 per cent of the population.

See page 26.

Cafetto has been working hard for the past 15 years to produce a suite of products that are not only environmentally friendly, but effective.

In its popular cleaning agent EVO, Cafetto uses plant-based detergents that are specifically chosen to target coffee oils and residue.

See page 34.

Since its first fully automatic machine hit the market in 2004, De’Longhi has increased the functionality and performance of its machines as new technology becomes available.

This work culminated in 2019, with the launch of the Maestosa luxury automatic coffee machine, designed and tested to be able to prepare 45,000 beverages over its lifespan.

See page 40.

The National Jury of the 2020 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence.

$314m

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The 2019 Procafecol sales result in Colombian peso (about US$82 million), in which Camila Escobar experienced in her first year and a half as Juan Valdez President, an 11 per cent growth compared to 2018.

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR COFFEE One-touch Barista-quality coffee has reached a new level of sophistication with the De’Longhi Maestosa Fully Automatic coffee machine. Made in Italy, Maestosa is the culmination of decades of experience, coffee know-how and Italian passion – resulting in the ultimate coffee experience. Whether you prefer an espresso or creamy cappuccino, all recipes are customisable to your taste.

ESPRESSO COFFEE MAKERS* * Independent research institute, value sales leader from Jan to Dec 2018 in 46 countries

*Independent research institute value sales leader Full Year 2019 in 46 countries

NEWS In brief

EUROPE

The Select concept of the new Schaerer Coffee Soul allows customers to choose the technical equipment and design considerations of their model.

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The International Coffee Organization has analysed 30 years’ worth of trade data in its October-released 2020 Coffee Development Report. It reveals a substantial expansion of export values (inflation-adjusted) of all forms of coffee from US$8.4 billion in 1991 to US$35.6 in 2018. Yet the highest growth in value terms is observed for processed coffee – roasted and soluble.

See page 14.

Global Coffee Platform has published its first Sustainable Coffee Purchases Snapshot in response to its 2019 call to action to collectively address the price crisis. It documents volumes of sustainable coffee purchases by companies under multiple GCP Baseline Coffee Code-recognised sustainability schemes and includes the top 10 coffee origins sourced from. Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Melitta, Nestlé, Strauss Coffee, and Supracafé are participating companies taking a stance to progress sustainable coffee sourcing.

See page 18.

Victoria Arduino unveiled its E1 Prima one-group espresso machine on 18 September with an online video that, at the time of print, had been watched by more than 20,000 people across the globe.

The new model incorporates Victoria Arduino’s New Engine Optimization (NEO) technology. The instant heating system requires a significantly smaller stainless-steel boiler because only the required water for extraction is heated.

See page 30.

German manufacturer Neuhaus Neotec has released its latest CTR II drum roaster in batches of 360 and 720 kilograms, equating to roughly 2000 and 4000 kilograms per hour. It features an external burner that heats the air, which flows homogeneously around the double-walled drum, preventing hot

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spots and applying heat to the entire coffee batch in an identical manner.

See page 32.

Cropster’s Bean Curve Prediction technology is helping customers stay on track during production roasting, leading to better consistency and less wasted batches. Bean Curve Prediction begins 60 seconds into a roast and is accurate within 1°C for two minutes into the future and 0.5°C within 30 seconds.

See page 38.

Over the past few years, self-service German interface company Iovent has formed a strategic partnership with Swiss manufacturer Eversys to create the algorithms, interface, and software integration of new products currently in development.

See page 42.

Germany company Melitta acquired Cafina in 1988, and automatic coffee machines have been core to its Melitta Professional B2B arm ever since. This includes Melitta’s automatic coffee quality (ACS) system technology, and variable pressure system that allows different levels of pressure to be used in the tamping process for individual recipes.

See page 46.

Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Schaerer launched its new brand strategy of customisation under the motto “We love it your way” in 2019. The Select concept of the new Schaerer Coffee Soul embodies this best, allowing customers to choose the technical equipment and design considerations of their unique models.

See page 48.

Fully automatic manufacturer WMF Professional Coffee Machines has established a global network with around 800 service employees across 11 countries and a further 200 service partners. The core of this decentralised service organisation is formed by competence centres in its headquarters in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States.

See page 50.

Eversys’ Chief Commercial Officer Kamal Bengougam says when control is abdicated and others assume it, our prospects often appear to diminish, decrease. The coffee farmers, the café owners and the baristas all have the power to apply form and substance to their own canvas.

See page 52.

$185

The highest price per pound ever recorded for an Ethiopian coffee at this year’s Cup of Excellence auction.

The top-scoring coffee was sold to producer Negussie Gemeda Mude.

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COVER STORY Juan Valdez

A national treasure JUAN VALDEZ PRESIDENT CAMILA ESCOBAR ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADING COLOMBIA’S ICONIC COFFEE GROWERS’ BRAND AND TURNING CHALLENGES INTO ITS GREATEST OPPORTUNITIES.

I

f the Statue of Liberty is considered a national icon of the United States, just like the pyramids are to Egypt and the maple leaf is to Canada, then Juan Valdez, a figure representing more than 540,000 coffee growers, is a national icon of Colombia.

So, when Camila Escobar considered taking on the role of Procafecol President, the company with the license for the Juan Valdez café brand and retail chain, she was asked one very important question: “what would make your kids proud of you?” That’s when Escobar knew she had to embrace the opportunities and challenges that came with working for the sacred brand. “[My kids] are very proud to see their mum leading a company and have in her hands the Colombian national icon that is Juan Valdez,” Escobar tells Global Coffee Report.

“Coffee is a central part of the Colombian culture and the Juan Valdez brand is as important as the Colombian flag. It’s a symbol for all Colombians and to lead that is a huge responsibility – for our coffee sector and for Colombia – because there is no other brand in the world owned by its producers.”

The National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC) established Juan Valdez in 2002 with the mission to captivate the world with premium Colombian coffee while generating value for its growers. The FNC tasked the brand with opening Juan Valdez shops around the world, of which there are now 322 in Colombia and more than 140 in 13 countries, including Ecuador, Chile, the United States, Spain, and Panama. Juan Valdez products are also available in supermarkets and retail chains in more than 30 countries around the globe.

But that volume reduced drastically, seemingly overnight in mid-March, when Juan Valdez became one of the first brands in Colombia to close its stores to protect its customers and employees from early contagion of the coronavirus, well before government instruction.

“It was a difficult moment for us, because 70 per cent of our sales come from our coffee shops. It meant a huge drop in income for the company, and of course has resulted in many economic challenges, but this pandemic has also impacted our farmers and our customers,” Escobar says.

The pandemic forced Juan Valdez to put its original 2020 plans on hold. The company moved swiftly to keep customers and staff safe, and to find new ways to connect with

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its audience. It strengthened its e-commerce platforms and established delivery, pickup, and takeaway services via a newly developed Juan Valdez app so that customers could buy coffee, food, and merchandise.

Retail volumes also rose dramatically.

From March to April, Escobar says at-home coffee consumption in Colombia rose 26 per cent, and a further 16 per cent since then, according to Radar market data.

“This tells us that coffee is one of the products that hasn’t been so badly affected by the pandemic. What has changed, however, is consumption habits, certainly in Colombia but also worldwide,” Escobar says. “Our mission, has been how to capture these new consumption opportunities and deliver a product the customer wants and needs.”

In 2019, Procafecol recorded COP$314 million (about US$82 million) in sales, an 11 per cent growth compared to 2018.

Image credit: Studio Kapture

N OV E M B E R /D EC E M B E R 2 0 2 0 | GCR

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COVER STORY Juan Valdez

Juan Valdez closed 70 per cent of its stores mid-March as a COVID-19 precaution. It immediately strengthened its e-commerce platforms for delivery, pickup and takeaway services.

The pandemic has seen Juan Valdez accelerate projects in line with its four brand strategies: brand strengthening, consolidating the national market, achieving exponential growth in the international market, and transforming the company culture. Juan Valdez is now exporting retail products to new overseas markets.

“Behind this is our intention to keep our brand relevant to customers in a time where it could easily not be. You could live without Juan Valdez during the pandemic, but social media has shown us how much our customers love and miss us. So, if they can’t come to us, we will go to them,” Escobar says.

While the company waits for further restrictions to ease so that in-store dining can resume, behind the scenes ‘strict yet fun’ protocols have been put in place to speak directly to the customer. Signs display the message ‘we’ve missed you a lot too’, and protective shields say, ‘it’s only temporary but our friendship is forever’. Even Juan Valdez and the mule Conchita icon was modified with a temporary face mask to promote hygiene measures and avoid spreading COVID-19.

BORN TO LEAD Escobar is an industrial engineer from Los Andes University with an MBA from Harvard Business School. She says her strong educational background is what opened the doors to her career in the coffee sector.

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“I remember one of my professors, probably one of the most important teachers I had in my life, Luis Alberto Godoy, who worked for the FNC with Roberto Velez, then FNC’s commercial manager and now CEO. They invited me to do an internship there in the financial risk management department while I completed my studies. We used to hedge the price of coffee,” Escobar says.

It was also through her first job at the FNC that Escobar visited a coffee farm for the first time, having grown up in Bogota, outside the country’s renowned producing regions.

“It was a beautiful experience. What you feel when you go into the Colombian mountains is pure magic. The small product the growers work with, a simple red cherry, represents so much: the optimism of Colombia, the taste of our country and what can be achieved from seed to cup.

It’s where you learn about the love Colombians have for our coffee producing heritage, that is mainly still all hand crafted,” she says.

After working at the FNC in her early 20s, Escobar completed her studies before becoming head of the Business Intelligence and Marketing Unit at Belcorp and consulted on high-impact projects at McKinsey Colombia for several years. She joined the Procafecol team in 2018, and now finds herself working with many of the same people she did all those years ago during her internship.

“I describe myself as a problem solver. It’s what I do every day. If I have a challenge, an issue or an opportunity – it doesn’t have to be bad, it can be a positive situation – I try to solve it,” she says.

Escobar says the first year and a half at Juan Valdez has been a “transformational experience”.

She took the company through a change in strategy, team, and company vision, and has strengthened relationships while achieving “extraordinary results”. In 2019, Procafecol recorded COP$314 million (about US$82 million) in sales, an 11 per cent growth compared to 2018, and 15 per cent growth in earning with a 9 per cent decrease in financial debt.

“We had better results than what we expected. The budget was not easy but we grew in double digits in all our channels, especially internationally which was difficult to do, so I felt very proud of that and the way we worked through it was directly related to our leadership characteristics and our teamwork,” Escobar says.

“It’s been both a challenging and rewarding experience. I’ve had the opportunity to grow as a professional, to grow as a person, and to grow as a leader, all while delivering value to 540,000 coffee growing families in Colombia.”

Escobar never envisaged herself working for the coffee industry. She did, however, envisage having an impact on Colombia and its female population. As luck would have it, in 2019, with the assistance of the FNC, Juan Valdez strengthened the Mujeres Cafeteras initiative to promote the coffee grown by 22 members of Colombia’s Viotá and Tequendama regions. In Colombia,

just a third of growers are women, farming 26 per cent of the land.

“Especially because I’m a woman, having the opportunity to reinforce our Mujeres Cafeteras product was amazing. Last year I went to one of the contributing farming areas and to see the faces of the women and how a project like this has really changed their lives, was so powerful. [The women have] become more confident about themselves, their kids are better off, and so is their community as a whole,” Escobar says. “It was one of the most emotional moments in my career at Juan Valdez and is definitely something that drives me forward, to keep creating value to communities and especially to the more vulnerable populations like women and youth.”

Embracing the next generation of growers is one of Juan Valdez’s strategic priorities and greatest challenges, but so is increasing local consumption of Colombian coffee.

“Compared to older generations, the youth are more open to trying new methods of coffee consumption, they are more passionate about sustainability, and they are very conscious about what they are drinking and where it comes from, so this is an opportunity Juan Valdez can capture,” Escobar says.

“Our challenges are our greatest opportunities. We are a company that was born to be social. We were born to be environmentally friendly and to be economically viable. If we can capture that

Image credit: Studio Kapture

Camila Escobar is driven to create value for the vulnerable populations in the Colombian farming community.

shared value, then we should be able to capture new customers and generations of coffee drinkers.”

MORE THAN A DREAM

“THIS TELLS US THAT COFFEE IS ONE OF THE PRODUCTS THAT HASN’T BEEN SO BADLY AFFECTED BY THE PANDEMIC. WHAT HAS CHANGED, HOWEVER, IS CONSUMPTION HABITS, CERTAINLY IN COLOMBIA BUT ALSO WORLDWIDE.”

According to the FNC’s September report, Colombia, the world’s largest producer of mild washed Arabica, experienced a record production season from October 2019 to August 2020, exceeding 13.1 million bags, up 3 per cent compared to the almost 12.8 million bags produced in the same previous period.

Escobar says this is a tremendous effort considering the logistics involved in safely collecting the harvested coffee. As the country prepares for its second harvest of the year, Escobar anticipates another strong result, forecast to hit 14 million bags.

“It’s been an amazing year for Colombia in terms of its coffee, in quality and quantity, but importantly in terms of price, we’re seeing some really healthy prices for producers,” she says.

Before the pandemic hit, Escobar would Camila Escobar visit Juan Valdez coffee farms regularly and Juan Valdez President talk directly to farmers about their needs. In this ‘new climate’, the company relies on its strong ties with the FNC and has two growers on its Steering Committee, representing 20 per cent of the board.

“Communication is always key to progress and has certainly been one of the leadership characteristics that has been crucial during the pandemic,” Escobar says.

“We don’t have all the answers, so we must communicate with our wider team in order to navigate through the uncertainty and vulnerability that this situation brings. It’s important to embrace vulnerability through the opportunity side and not from the fear side, which is what Juan Valdez has been trying to do.”

Escobar wakes up each day with the same purpose: to captivate the world with the best of Colombian coffee in order to generate value for the Colombian coffee growers. It’s this clear, tangible, and meaningful purpose that motivates her to do her best for the community she leads – pandemic or no pandemic.

“One of my kids now says I harvest coffee and she says it so proudly that it makes me feel proud as well,” Escobar says.

“I want to inspire others towards a common goal. That’s true leadership to me. I hope that my transition into a leadership position opens the possibilities for other women to follow.

“My role is to show that women can add value to the table because of the diversity of conversations and diversity of approaches we bring to the table and our ability to deliver results. I’m passionate about doing that through Juan Valdez. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.” G C R

N OV E M B E R /D EC E M B E R 2 0 2 0 | GCR

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ECONOMICS ICO Report

A new perspective THE ICO REFLECTS ON THE 2020 EDITION OF THE COFFEE DEVELOPMENT REPORT , THE SECOND EDITION OF ITS FLAGSHIP PUBLICATION, AND HIGHLIGHTS THE BIGGER PICTURE OF THE GLOBAL COFFEE VALUE CHAIN.

T

he rise of global value chains (GVCs) over the past 30 years has resulted in more complex and geographically fragmented supply chains for a vast variety of goods, ranging from smartphones to agricultural products. Whether ‘spider-like’ with internationally-sourced parts and components assembled at a factory or ‘snakelike’ with value created step by step along the supply chain, GVCs today account for half of global trade, according to the World Bank.

Traditionally, coffee has been viewed as a tropical commodity linking producing countries in the south with consuming countries in the north. Member states of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), the inter-governmental organisation for coffee, are categorised as exporters or importers based on criteria developed in the 1960s. However, with increasing globalisation of processing and consumption of coffee across countries and geographies, these categories have become blurred. In fact, coffee is by no means an exception in the era of GVCs. Production and international trade have changed dramatically with economic dividends in the form of higher productivity, employment, and economic growth, but also with increased exposure to shocks, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 experience.

The 2020 Coffee Development Report , ICO’s economic flagship publication, launched in October and available online, assesses the coffee sector through the lens of GVCs. Taking a GVC perspective enables us to move beyond the dichotomy of exporting/importing countries and the traditional notion of bilateral trade. The new vantage point more accurately reflects

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the complex reality of international trade in coffee and coffee products, the changing value distribution, and removes blind spots from previous analyses.

The ICO Economics and Statistics units have teamed up with the renowned Kiel Institute for the World Economy, as well as partners at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the London School of Economics, to map the evolution and drivers of coffee GVCs, providing new insights into the economic sustainability and resilience of the global coffee sector.

GVCs are characterised by hyperspecialisation. This includes production tasks carried out in different countries, high-efficiency operations, and closer and durable firm-to-firm relationships that allow for knowledge and technology transfer across borders. Within the coffee GVC, the raw material produced in tropical countries crosses borders several times, with value added at each step on its journey from farm to cup. For instance, Germany – a traditional importing country – receives coffee from Vietnam, the largest green Robusta exporter, adds value, and re-exports processed coffee

to end consumers in various countries worldwide.

However, coffee-producing countries and non-traditional consuming countries are also increasingly undertaking export-orientated processing activities. This development is driven by internal consumption as well as regional and global trade. Our analysis of 30 years’ worth of ICO trade data reveals a substantial expansion of export values (inflation-adjusted) of all forms of coffee from US$8.4 billion in 1991 to US$35.6 in 2018 (see Figure 1). Yet the highest growth in value terms is observed for processed coffee – roasted and soluble. Both forms accounted for higher shares of coffee exports in 2018 (29 per cent for roasted coffee, 14 per cent for soluble coffee) compared to 1991 (8 per cent for roasted coffee, 11 per cent for soluble coffee), highlighting the increased complexity of coffee GVCs and growing importance of trade in ever more diverse processed coffee products.

A further geographical breakdown shows that advanced regions, such as Europe and North America, account for almost all the roasted coffee exports and more than half of the soluble coffee exports. However, Asian and Middle Eastern countries have considerably increased their soluble coffee exports and their respective share in total exports worldwide. South and Central American and African countries could not benefit to the same degree from value addition and increasing trade in processed coffee.

The econometric analysis of global trade in coffee identifies drivers of GVC participation.

Richer countries with a significant industrial base and established brands are more likely to expand exports of roasted coffee, the category with strongly increasing value added. Robustaproducing countries have successfully entered soluble production. Vietnam, for instance, increasingly engages in functional upgrading thereby contributing to global supply of soluble coffee. As a result of the increased availability, inflation-adjusted per-unit value of soluble coffee exports has decreased since the 1990s.

Billion USD

ECONOMICS ICO Report

Figure 1: Global coffee export values by form (inflation-adjusted). Source: ICO

OUR ANALYSIS SHOWS THAT, WITHIN COFFEE GVCS, ARABICAPRODUCING COUNTRIES ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH PRODUCT UPGRADING OR ‘DECOMMODIFICATION’ OF GREEN COFFEE. International Coffee Organization

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On the other hand, the data reveals that Arabica-growing countries are less likely to participate in functional upgrading. Typically, green Arabicas are transformed into roasted coffee but export markets remain difficult to access due to technical challenges related to production and shipping of more perishable roasted coffee as well as the strong presence of incumbent brands from rich countries. This is further exacerbated by the existence of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers – the latter also negatively affects Robusta producers.

Our analysis shows that, within coffee GVCs, Arabica-producing countries are more likely to be associated with product upgrading or ‘decommodification’ of green coffee. In this case, value-addition occurs through increased product quality, often as a result of integrated supply chain relationships between farmers and traders or roasters as well as foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. Closer and long-lasting relationships facilitate technology transfer and access to capital and inputs along value chains and in particular for farmers. This in turn leads to higher levels of productivity and ensures consistent supply of the coffee of desired attributes, such as quality and sustainability.

Results from Colombia show that GVCs increased profits in the value chain by about 30 per cent.

Half of the additional surplus remained with the participating farmers. We find that sustainable sourcing commitments by traders and roasters as well as voluntary sustainability standards, which are integral elements of coffee GVCs, also measurably drive positive social and environmental impact. For example, by mitigating the impact of climate change and fostering gender equality, GVCs thereby contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Despite the substantive growth in the sector driven by GVCs and many successful initiatives by the industry, participation in GVCs and associated economic, social, and environmental benefits have remained limited to certain regions and/or producers. Along with low prices since

2016, millions of coffee growing-households in developing countries are increasingly at risk. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the situation.

Against this backdrop, the 2020 ICO Coffee Development Report formulates recommendations on how to integrate coffee producers in GVCs and defines a set of trade and industrial policies that reduce trade barriers, increase FDI flows and foster the resilience against shocks, with a view to foster a living income for coffee farmers.

The findings of the report will not only be widely disseminated among ICO Members, the coffee industry and within the international development community but also feed directly into the new action-orientated ICO Coffee Public-Private Task Force process. This ensures that we move from ‘admiring the problem’ to solving it. G C R For more information, visit www.ico.org

ABOUT US

This article was co-authored by Dr Christoph Saenger and Dr Cansin Arslan.

Saenger is the Senior Economist at the ICO, conducting research on coffee value chains in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Prior to joining the ICO, he was an economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Arslan is an Economist (consultant) at the ICO. Her doctoral studies at Georg-August University of Göttingen focused on a range of topics in the coffee value chain in eastern Uganda including quality upgrading and profitability of processing activities at the farm-level, and interactions between value chain actors.

Prior to her PhD, she worked as a consultant at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The ICO is the main intergovernmental organisation for coffee, bringing together exporting and importing governments to tackle the challenges facing the world coffee sector through international cooperation. Its Member Governments represent 98 per cent of world coffee production and 67 per cent of world consumption.

FEATURE Triple threat

Triple threat

CLIMATE CHANGE, CORONAVIRUS, AND LOW COFFEE PRICES ARE IMPACTING THE COFFEE SUPPLY CHAIN, COMPOUNDING EACH OTHER, AND NO ONE IS IMMUNE.

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he year 2020 has thrown the world new challenges and reignited ongoing ones that need urgent attention. To date, the coronavirus has infected 35 million people worldwide – and counting – while climate change and low prices have impacted approximately 12.5 million farms and more than 100 million people connected through the supply chain, and there’s no signs of eradication for either threat.

Annette Pensel, Executive Director of Global Coffee Platform (GCP), a multi-stakeholder membership association, says this year has highlighted the fact that threats do not exist independently from each other. The impacts are

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compounded and the risk to the world’s most vulnerable communities are increasing exponentially.

“It’s been undeniable that coffee sustainability will not be reached without addressing all these threats simultaneously, but each of us can play a role in how we approach these challenges. By working together, we can leverage off of each other’s strengths and address coffee sustainability in a more holistic way,” Pensel says.

For the last 12 months, the livelihoods and wellbeing of coffee farming communities has been GCP’s priority, with the association calling for urgent and collective action on the coffee price crisis.

Pensel says without acting boldly, we cannot achieve economic viability of sustainable coffee farming and a living income for coffee communities.

“With the persistent low coffee price levels in the market and additional impact from the pandemic, the livelihoods of millions of coffee farming families will be affected even more. This development also aggravates the high risk of losing origin diversity in the coffee supply if our sector continues with business as usual,” Pensel tells Global Coffee Report.

As such, GCP has published its first Sustainable Coffee Purchases Snapshot in response to its 2019

call to action to collectively address the price crisis. It documents volumes of sustainable coffee purchases by companies under multiple GCP Baseline Coffee Code-recognised sustainability schemes and includes the top 10 coffee origins sourced from.

Pensel says the five participating companies – Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Melitta, Nestlé, Strauss Coffee, and Supracafé – have taken a “clear and confident step” to supporting global progress in sustainable coffee sourcing.

CLIMATE IN CRISIS Climate experts have defined the next decade as our “most critical”. It’s a decisive decade in which the world needs to reduce its carbon emissions to limit global warning to 1.5°C, while at the same time, find ways to counteract the impacts already being felt due to inaction.

According to World Coffee Research (WCR) CEO Jennifer ‘Vern’ Long, the climate crisis has already arrived.

“It is already affecting the choices farmers make and they are finding that their long-

standing approaches to managing crops is being challenged by unexpected events. It is increasing both the uncertainty and the risk they face daily,” Long says.

“The climate crisis will drive more coffee producers out of coffee than anything else. But it doesn’t work alone. It’s really the interaction between the climate crisis and other threats that makes it so pernicious. For example, low prices mean that farmers don’t have the ability to protect their farms from the adverse effects of climate change, or to invest in adaptations that might allow them to take advantage of opportunities in normal or good years.”

What’s needed, Long says, is to improve productivity with less viable land. At the same time, shade-grown coffee production must be increased. These two things historically have been a challenge to achieve together. The solution, she says, is breeding.

“If we really want to secure a long-term future for coffee, we have to dramatically increase the amount and sophistication of breeding happening now – not just in one country, but in many. There is a huge role for industry to play in this,” Long says.

In other major commodity crops, industries have come together to spread risk and collectively fund this kind of R&D through mandatory national checkoff programs. In coffee, there is a voluntary checkoff program via WCR, which Long says is doing important work to assist coffee producing countries to modernise their breeding programs. But the levels of funding, roughly US$4 million per year, is still just a fraction of what’s needed to generate continuous impact to support farmers and coffee producing countries to continuously adapt as the climate changes.

WCR is currently working with producing countries to support their efforts to modernise their breeding pipelines and helping improve access to quality planting materials.

“High-powered modern breeding, taking advantage of modern tools, is where coffee needs to go, but very few countries are able to do this kind of breeding right now, or are trying to do it on shoestring budgets, and most can’t afford to transition their programs on their own,” Long says.

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FEATURE Triple threat

“Those that can will continue to put distance between themselves and everyone else, consolidating their lead in the market. As long as origin diversity matters to the industry, access to new coffee varieties is absolutely essential.”

On 1 October, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Coffee Federation, in partnership with Food&HotelAsia (FHA) hosted a webinar on the future of its coffee production, in which it addressed the fact that South East Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change.

Vietnam, the world’s largest producer and exporter of Robusta coffee, is already experiencing rising sea levels and typhoons, while its central highlands are expected to face extended periods of drought.

“You only have to look at a mountain to see that the lower parts are facing hotter periods of increased temperature than the top. All of a sudden, the area of coffee production is moving higher and higher up the mountain, an area that’s harder for farmers to access,” Alfredo Nuno, Director of Starbucks Global Farmer Support Centres and Hacienda Alsacia, Costa Rica told the audience.

The other challenge, Vietnam Senior Coffee Expert, Dr Dave D’haeze added, is erratic or unseasonal rainfall. Vietnamese farmers traditionally sun dry their coffee, but heavy rainfall is infecting crops with mould, which can no longer be exported because it doesn’t comply with strict food quality standards.

Pacita Juan, 2nd Vice President of the ASEAN Coffee Federation and President of the Philippine Coffee Board, also fears for Vietnam’s future, telling GCR that due to the country’s high yields – producing five times more than the Philippines’ 750 kilograms per hectare – its economy will be impacted.

What’s needed, Juan says, is a collective responsibility to push consumers to buy local, traceable coffee.

“I really do think domestic consumption will be the game changer for many countries,” Juan says.

“I think a balance of production and domestic consumption will save us, but for countries like Indonesia and Vietnam who have buffer stock because they produce more than they consume, it will be more of a challenge. It will definitely drive prices down, but if people start looking for traceable coffee then farmers will benefit in that consumers will be willing to pay more.”

No matter the origin in question, Tim Scharrer, Managing Director and Vice President of Green Coffee & Cocoa at Starbucks Coffee Trading Company, also joined the webinar in saying it’s important to remember that there’s no “one size fits all” approach to climate solutions.

“In some countries we’re seeing a drastic weather change from too little rain to too much rain. So, we [at Starbucks] are looking into supply chains around the world and specific areas that we believe are having the biggest impact on global carbon emissions in each specific country, such as the use of fertiliser without targeted soil analysis, and wet milling, which is heavily used in Central and Latin America and takes up a lot of energy,” Tim said.

As part of its global initiative, Starbucks is working with WCR at Hacienda Alsacia, Starbucks’ research centre in Costa Rica to evaluate candidates for possible future release to farmers. And in Sumatra, it is building greater shade areas, using native tree species to provide extra nitrogen in the soil, and looking at crop diversification and intercropping methods.

A CHANGING WORLD COVID-19 has paused travel opportunities for many in the coffee industry. Zoom meetings have become a suitable replacement, but for WCR, travel restrictions have halted critical care for plants in research trial networks and delayed planting of new trees.

What’s more, WCR’s Long says labour availability due to movement restrictions in a number of countries has been a challenge for producers.

“Anything that hinders a farmer’s ability to care for his or her plants has consequences that play out over time – an inability to purchase or apply fertilisers this year will impact production next year,” she says.

GCP’s Pensel says the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the challenges being faced by coffee-producing communities and has further negatively impacted many parts of the coffee sector.

In some countries, the impact has been directly related to the number of infections and the capacities

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Pacita Juan, 2nd Vice President of the ASEAN Coffee Federation and President of the Philippine Coffee Board.

Annette Pensel, Executive Director of Global Coffee Platform.

World Coffee Research CEO Jennifer ‘Vern’ Long.

of the health system. In others, Pensel says the impact has been felt through market changes and restrictions imposed by governments, including social distancing, travel restriction, curfews, and lockdowns.

Some coffee producing countries like Honduras, Uganda and Kenya, saw strict curfews and lockdowns early in the pandemic.

Several others, including Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, have increased their production

compared to the previous coffee year, with Vietnam having ended its harvesting before the start of the global pandemic. Pensel says changes to the way coffee farming communities’ work are largely caused by measures to ensure health and safety, with implication on the workforce.

Disruption in logistics and transport have caused challenges in export, while Pensel predicts we might see the effect from possibly reduced global demand, especially for specialty coffees, going forward.

“The impact on coffee production and global output is expected to become more visible in the coming months as harvesting season has started in more coffee producing countries,” she says.

Whereas in the Philippines, President of the Philippine Coffee Board, Juan, says the coronavirus has resulted in 20 million people unemployed, resulting in a surge of young workers heading to the provinces in search of job opportunities.

“The average age of coffee farmer in the Philippines is 60, so to see a movement of younger people engage in the backend of the supply chain has been one positive outcome of this pandemic,” Juan says.

“Many millennials have been displaced from their 9am to 5pm jobs and are looking for something to do. Our government is supporting young farmers by providing interest free loans for those aged between 18 to 35 to go into agriculture enterprise. Billions are being poured into this de-migration initiative to ‘go back to the province’.”

GCP’s Pensel says perhaps the current pandemic, which only reveals the underlaying, systemic challenges of the coffee sector with a magnifying glass, will push the industry harder to “step up and go beyond business as usual” to achieve our shared vision of a thriving, sustainable coffee sector.

“We need shared responsibility in individual company commitments along with healthy competition in the supply chains and the market. We also need shared responsibility in pre-competitive, joint action on the industry’s greatest challenges, such as the effects from COVID-19, the coffee price crisis, and climate change,” she says.

Importantly, Pensel says people have to be at the centre of any approach to these challenges. GCP’s locally designed National Coffee Sustainability Curricula provide coffee farmers with essential knowledge about sustainable farming practices. GCP tools at local and global level enable measuring sustainability progress over time in an aligned way. Based on analysis and evidence, sustainability gaps that influence profitability can then be identified and addressed.

Examples of this kind of approach can be found in GCP’s Collective Action Initiatives. Co-funded by GCP Members and others, these opensource multi-year programs address complex sustainability issues such as agrochemicals and agro-inputs such as glyphosate, water, social wellbeing and labour conditions, and effective extension services.

“Not only do these initiatives and the broader work of the Country Platforms benefit coffee farmers, they also influence policy and contribute to a more conducive business environment for sustainable, profitable coffee production,” Pensel says.

She says low price levels and volatility, along with the slowly recovering economy are likely to continue in 2021, however, she also expects to see coffee companies and coffee farming communities find new ways to adapt to a world that is not likely going to return to “normal” any time soon. And that, she says, will be evidence of our industry’s resilience. G C R

FEATURE Cup of Excellence

RECORD AFTER RECORD DESPITE THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, THE CUP OF EXCELLENCE COMPETITION IS HAVING ITS STRONGEST AUCTIONS AND SEEING THE HIGHEST PRICES IN ITS 20-YEAR HISTORY. GCR DISCOVERS WHY.

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Maruyama Coffee in one of five GCCs around the world.

he year 2020 has been full of surprises. Very few would have predicted the many twists and turns the coffee industry, and the world at large, would take thanks to the coronavirus. Coffee shop service changed, borders closed, and those who could, found themselves working from home.

But some surprises were better than others. Despite a rapid change to how the Cup of Excellence is held and questions over buyer’s ability to purchase expensive lots, the coffee quality competition has had a booming year.

The inaugural Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, held in late-March/early-April, received a record 1459 samples from producers. The Cup of Excellence auction in May achieved a record-high average price of US$28 per pound. The top-scoring coffee sold at US$185.10 per pound to producer Negussie Gemeda Mude. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) says this is the highest price ever recorded for an Ethiopian coffee.

Including the National Winner auction in June, the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence raised more than US$1.5 million for participating producers, another record.

Cup of Excellence’s winning streak didn’t end there. The subsequent four Cup of Excellence auctions – in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica – held across July and August all broke in-country records for the average price paid per pound at the competitions.

The Guatemala auction even broke a record for the highest price paid at US$180.20 per pound for the winning lot. ACE Executive Director Darrin Daniel tells Global Coffee Report he could never have predicted the Cup of Excellence’s fantastic 2020 run.

“You’d think with all this uncertainty, people would be less willing to put down this much money on coffees that just might not sell, but we’re having the best auctions in our overall history,” Daniel says.

“Farmers have been overjoyed that we’ve been able to pull it off. They have to get their micro

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lots ready and commit time well in advance, so they were very happy we were committed to backing them in a really tough year.”

For the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, judging was quickly relocated from the country’s capital of Addis Ababa to ACE’s headquarters in Portland, United States, when borders were restricted. For future competitions, ACE established five more Global Coffee Centers (GCC) with long-term Cup of Excellence jurors and buyers – Campos Coffee in Australia, Maruyama Coffee and Wataru & Co in Japan, Kaffebrenneriet in Norway, and Terarosa Coffee in South Korea – to judge the coffees.

Daniel says there were concerns that decentralising to Cup of Excellence would “erode” the competition’s standards. However, he argues the isolation actually led to more stringent judging.

“There were fewer Presidential Winners – coffees that scored 90 or above – than usual.

Looking at the data, we can see overall the GCCs scored slightly lower than in-person judging. There were fewer judges than with a normal 24- to 32-person jury, and when we don’t have as many cuppers, we see a statistically lower attachment to those coffees,” Daniel says.

“There is also less correlation with a group of two or three people, even if it is all aggregated in the end, but the slightly lower scores still didn’t impact pricing.”

For the auctions, the ACE made several changes it thought would help accommodate more buyers. This included smaller lot sizes and a lowered floor price for bidding.

“We thought the floor price might entice people to join, but that would’ve meant a lower end price when they gave up bidding. Instead, we found the auctions just tended to last an hour or two longer because we started so low,” Daniel says.

“The lot size was a big win in terms of

The 2020 Guatemala Cup of Excellence set a new record for highest price paid in its auction.

getting higher prices, especially when we had buyer groups willing to share a box or two with eight or nine other companies. People weren’t committing to the entire lot, so they felt like that was something they could really digest or sell, and not over-forecast.”

Daniel says since the Ethiopian auction, the Cup of Excellence has seen some new and returning buyers, but largely, the lots are being bought by the same companies that have supported the competitions over the years.

Maruyama Coffee has been involved with the Cup of Excellence for almost 20 years, first buying from the Guatemala auction in 2001 and judging in the Nicaragua competition in 2002. The roaster continues to buy from Cup of Excellence auctions, often securing winning lots, including in every auction so far in 2020.

Founder Kentaro Maruyama says while Cup of Excellence coffees now make up a small part of the roaster’s overall business, the competition has helped him form direct trade relationships with many producers, marks the roaster as a market leader, and holds a special place in his heart.

“Somebody once said to me: ‘Cup of Excellence is a search engine for top specialty coffee producers’, and I agree,” Maruyama says.

Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and recently China, are well represented by Cup of Excellence buyers, despite having smaller coffee industries than other countries. Maruyama believes this is due to the competitiveness of the market, desire to be the best, and auctions already being a normal part of Japanese culture and business.

“In Tokyo, there are 30 to 50 high-end sushi restaurants that are always looking for the best tuna, because the rank of tuna they handle shows the rank of their sushi restaurant. They send brokers into the fish market and there’s always news or discussion about who bought the best tuna, particularly in the very first market of the year on 3 or 4 January. The price goes up, up, and up, because the restaurants want it to be a fact that they are the very first buyer this year of the number

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FEATURE Cup of Excellence

The National Jury of the 2020 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence.

one tuna,” Maruyama explains.

“For me, the Cup of Excellence auction is like the tuna market in Tokyo. In an auction, not only are you paying the practical price, saying ‘this coffee is worth this much’, you are adding value to that. Sometimes, it goes up and up – it’s fun and often costly – but it’s a very good ‘spice’ that gives energy to the market.”

In a year where events have been cancelled and face-to-face interaction limited, Maruyama says it has been difficult for roasters to market coffees or generate buzz. As well as providing a product to sell, the Cup of Excellence has given Maruyama Coffee news to promote.

By taking part in the judging and auction, Maruyama is also able to still feel connected to the global coffee community.

“We do communicate through the internet, emails, and Facetime, but we miss that feeling of connection with producers,” he says. “I didn’t use that ‘energy’ or enthusiasm for buying, so I’ve put it towards bidding, and I think others are the same.”

Despite experiencing a drop in sales in-line with other business due to COVID-19, Maruyama Coffee has been able to continue buying winning lots by working in buying groups with other roasters around the world.

Maruyama says while it can be difficult to form these groups, especially with international partners, it significantly lowers the bar to attaining these premium coffees.

“Lot sizes are getting smaller and smaller, but they’re still kind of big for one roaster to be able to sell with such a high premium. I’m sharing those coffees with many other buyers, so it’s crazily expensive per pound, but I can handle it because the amount is very small,” he says.

“You all have certain budgets, and once it goes above that for someone, they withdraw, so it’s a little bit complicated and takes trust. But the Cup of Excellence has a certain sense of family. Many buyers I know personally through judging. We are all competitors in a sense, but we work in different markets, so we can share the same coffees.”

Goodboybob coffee in the US is a frequent buying group partner of Maruyama Coffee, and likewise, has secured a share of each winning lot in the first five Cup of Excellence auctions of 2020.

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Goodboybob Manager Ryan Fisher says it’s important to the roaster it makes these premium coffees available in America, and like Maruyama Coffee, find the small lots easier to work with.

“The way we’re built as a company, there’s no way I could sell 1000 pounds of US$187 Ethiopia. By breaking it down into smaller chunks, it allows me to spend more per pound and get an amount I can actually work with,” Fisher says.

“We haven’t seen our demand for higher-end coffee go down [because of COVID-19]. People don’t show up in the café for pour overs as much, but we’re selling more of these coffees online.

People are looking for ways to treat themselves, and we’ve seen a lot more people buying these coffees for other people as gifts.”

The pandemic has, however, forced goodboybob to alter its green coffee buying in 2020. In particular, Fisher says the roaster imported less coffee from many Central American countries, like Guatemala, which incentivised it to go in big in that auction.

“I knew I wasn’t purchasing much from Guatemala this year, so it was a chance to go after the best from that country. I didn’t expect the prices to go as high, but I think other people

who couldn’t buy pallets of Guatemalan coffee this year still wanted to be involved too,” he says.

Despite the benefits to buyers like goodboybob, Fisher says the true value of the Cup of Excellence is how it gives back to producers.

“A lot of the attention is always at the top and I’m guilty there too. If you’ve ever been to one of the award ceremonies where the winners are revealed and met farmers that have placed even in the top 20, it can be lifechanging for them,” he says.

“If we look at the Ethiopia auction this year, these are farmers whose coffee has primarily been on the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. It’s an opportunity for them to present themselves to the world, and that doesn’t stop at first, second, or third place. If they’re above the 86-point cut off, it’s something that can make a real difference in their lives for years to come.”

The Cup of Excellence has three more auctions scheduled for 2020, Colombia in November and Peru and Brazil in December.

ACE’s Daniel is thankful for the support of the coffee community in this year’s auctions and

The success of the 2020 Cup of Excellence is encouraging for the next generation of coffee farmers, like Tania Ferrufino, seventh place in the Nicaragua COE.

in-country partners who made them possible.

“Some people only see the competitions as a marketing or promotional tool, but they’re really a driver of economic development. It builds areas outside of the competition and what producers can do beyond the Cup of Excellence,” Daniel says.

“We’re excited to finish out the year with our partners in South America and are already getting to work on 2021. We’re not stalling our efforts and are sitting in a really good spot.” G C R

ORIGIN Timor-Leste

Coming of AGE TIMOR-LESTE COFFEE HAS TAKEN STRIDES IN RECENT YEARS AND HAS HAD AN IMPACT ON THE GLOBAL INDUSTRY THAT GOES FAR BEYOND ITS SHARE OF PRODUCTION.

A

frica and South or Central America may be more synonymous with coffee production, but the Pacific Islands are also home to a diverse array of origin countries. Timor-Leste in particular has had a noteworthy history.

In the 1950s, the small nation provided a saving grace to the global coffee industry struggling with coffee leaf rust in the form of Hibrido de Timor (HDT).

A naturally occurring crossbreed of Arabica and Robusta coffee, HDT combined the former’s flavour profile with the latter’s strong rust and climate resistance. It was exported and bred around the world to create stronger coffee plants, many of which are still planted today.

But after the discovery of HDT, Timor-Leste played a rather small role on the world stage. In 2015, the paper ‘Timor-Leste Coffee: Marketing the “Golden Prince” in Post-crisis Conditions’ from the journal Food, Culture & Society put its contribution at 0.2 per cent of total production.

Despite this, coffee cultivation is very important to the Timor-Leste economy. Yuki Ebizawa, Country Representative/Director of non-governmental organisation Peace Winds Japan (PWJ) in Timor-Leste and local social enterprise and specialty coffee trader Café Brisa Serena, says as the nation’s third largest export in 2019, the coffee industry supports about 25 per cent of the population. As such, since being recognised as an independent state in 2002, coffee has been a key driver of diversifying Timor-Leste’s economy.

“In the Indonesian colonial period, there was not much attention given to the coffee quality as it was mainly sold as commodity product, and coffee buyers focused only on collecting quantity. Thus, it has also contributed to the low price for Timor-Leste coffee in overseas markets,” Ebizawa says.

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Beside HDT, Timor Leste’s main differentiator on the market has been the almost exclusive production of organic coffee.

But in the last five years or so, the nation’s understanding of – and focus on – coffee quality has skyrocketed.

“Compared to other famous coffeeproducing countries, the coffee production of Timor-Leste was overwhelmingly small, and it was difficult to compete with them in terms of production. Thus, we focused on improving coffee quality, rather than adding quantity to improve coffee farmers’ livelihoods,” Ebizawa says.

PWJ helped established Cafe Brisa Serena in 2010 with the aim of improving the quality of life of coffee farmers in TimorLeste by offering technical assistance on organic

farming management, coffee rehabilitation, building new wet mills for farmers, provide capacity building and create marketing strategy to support farmers to enter specialty coffee market. It now exports coffee to large markets, including Japan, the United States, and Europe.

In 2014, Cafe Brisa Serena launched Cafe Letefoho in 2014, “the first specialty coffee shop in Timor-Leste”.

“Until we launched our shop, even many Timorese people didn’t know that Timor-Leste produces high-quality coffee, but now many people recognise and are proud of the highquality coffee representing the country,” Ebizawa says. “We opened our café for the purpose of creating job opportunities in the coffee industry for the youth. If the children of coffee farmers were to engage in the coffee industry, there was [only the] option to become a coffee farmer in the past, but [now, they can] engage in coffee in a different way.”

Like Ebizawa and PWJ, several individuals, businesses, and non-government organisations saw potential in Timor-Leste’s coffee production

and began initiatives to help the sector. But they and the government quickly realised collective action was needed to boost the sector.

In 2016, Andrew Hetzel, Founder of Coffee Strategies, visited Timor-Leste as a consultant to assess the prospect of forming a private sectorled coffee industry association in Timor-Leste.

Hetzel tells Global Coffee Report Timor-Leste is a producing country unlike any other.

“The growing conditions are extraordinary…

Tall, misty hills with cool night and bright warm sun during the day and fertile soil. The trees are old and essentially growing wild in the countryside Festival Kafe Timor is held every year to promote Timor-Leste coffee.

– which makes them unproductive – but potential for quality is extraordinary,” Hetzel says. “Unlike many other origins, the people are long-time coffee drinkers. The Timorese appreciate the beverage as more than a cash crop. Understanding the importance of coffee culture has been a bridge for the younger generation to advance 200-year-old farming practices and join modern specialty markets.”

Assosiasaun Café Timor was formalised in 2016, bringing together the nation’s farmers, traders, even roasters and baristas, to create a more unified coffee industry. Afonso Oliveira, Agribusiness Program Manager of Timor Global, has served as the association’s Vice-President since its inception and says it has so far fulfilled this goal.

“Our main objective is to bring together all stakeholders in the coffee industry, so we can work together to improve the quality and meet demands from the international market,” says

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ORIGIN Timor-Leste

Assosiasaun Café Timor has promoted education and training across Timor-Leste’s coffee industry.

Oliveira. “Before, farmers worked their own way, and it was the same with buyers and baristas.

Now, they can help each other to improve. The quality of a coffee is not dependent on one person, it’s on all those involved in the chain.”

One of Assosiasaun Café Timor’s first initiatives was to launch Festival Kafe Timor, an annual event that promotes Timor-Leste coffee. The festival, which is also home to a National Barista Championship and Coffee Quality Competition, has proved to be a boon for the industry.

In 2017 Julia Ximenes, formerly of Agora Food Studio, was crowned Timor-Leste’s first National Barista Champion and reclaimed her title in 2018.

“The festival and its competitions changed the mindset of the industry. Coffee shops began involving their baristas in more training, so they can make better quality coffee and cup it to tell good from bad,” Ximenes says. “That’s improved how they work from day to day. In the next few years, I think many coffee shops will open not only in the city but the districts and municipalities.”

Timor-Leste coffee processing has taken huge leaps in quality in recent years.

The Coffee Quality Competition has served as a benchmark for the nation’s farmers to measure their coffees. In 2019, Timor Global submitted a natural process coffee from Fatubessi, Ermera in the competition, which won with 88 cupping points. This marks Timor-Leste’s highest scoring coffee to date.

“We saw a lot more interest from buyers around the world for that coffee, to the point there wasn’t enough of it to meet demand,” Oliveira says. “Now some of these buyers are purchasing some of our member’s coffees, so we hope to strengthen these relationships.”

With its current and upcoming generations the first to be raised in a self-governed state, Coffee Strategies’ Hetzel says Timor-Leste is benefitting from a sense of ownership and motivation among younger coffee farmers and traders.

“I’m very excited by what’s happened in just the past few years – young people learning about best practices in coffee as baristas and farmers. They’re taking that knowledge back from the capital city of Dili and abroad

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to their home villages. It’s been a difficult path, but I believe we’re seeing entrepreneurs bloom now, and they’re very interested in coffee,” he says.

Mariano ‘Ameta’ da Costa Alves is one such young Timorese citizen to embrace coffee production. Despite growing up in the coffee growing region of Atsabe, Ameta’s first step into the coffee industry was as a barista at Café Letefoho.

“They were looking for a barista and wanted someone that came from coffee regions and farms. I did not know what a barista was or what they do until I went in there and got trained,” Ameta says.

Café Letefoho sent Ameta to training and education sessions in Indonesia and Japan so he could share that new information with his co-workers. At the Japanese event, a farmer’s conference, he was introduced to the concept of natural and honey processing methods by producers from African countries.

“That opened my mind to how there’s not just one way to make coffee, and we can do things differently to improve the coffee quality,” Ameta says.

Upon returning, Ameta applied to work as a seasonal fruit picker in neighbouring Australia for two months to raise the funds to start his own coffee processing business.

Access to capital allowed him to purchase drying bed materials, a laptop, and a motorcycle for transport – to set up a natural

processing station on his family’s farm. The coffee processed there was popular locally, but Ameta knew he would need to do more.

“I wanted to develop the coffee [production] across Atsabe, but only selling in the local market wouldn’t be enough. I could process my own family’s coffee and just sell it locally, but not my neighbours’ or the community’s,” Ameta says.

In 2018, Ameta received support from the New Zealand Embassy in Timor-Leste to join Flight Coffee in New Zealand to learn more about roasting and coffee operations across the value-chain. Having made contact with Matt Graylee, Director of Raw Material in New Zealand, Timor-Leste has since been a priority origin for the coffee trader and social enterprise. Ameta even began leading Raw Material’s work in the country, including the production of a wet mill in Atsabe.

“We strongly believe the future of TimorLeste coffee is in the specialty market… The country is set up to be able to compete in the quality arena, with its high altitudes, forestgardens, and tenacious, adaptable, caring

culture. If tomorrow is going to look better than yesterday, reaching the specialty market is a must,” Graylee tells GCR . “Every three months global demand for specialty coffee increases by more than the total annual output of Timor-Leste. It is an incredible and obvious opportunity.”

Two coffees from the wet mill placed third and fifth in the 2018 Coffee Quality Competition, while a naturally processed coffee of Ameta’s won the competition. He says this really helped show farmers the benefits of new processing methods.

“When people see someone else win and companies want to buy their coffee, it makes them want to win too, so they try to develop what they are doing,” Ameta says.

While there has been significant growth in the Timor-Leste coffee industry, there are still challenges that must be overcome. To date, Timor-Leste has enjoyed limited exposure to coronavirus with only 32 positive cases to date, but the country has felt the flow-on effect the pandemic has had on global coffee demand. Low prices also disincentivise many from entering the industry, especially when some traders do little to help the situation.

“One of the biggest problems is that the company that buys the coffee doesn’t always help the farmer, to train them or give them information so they understand how to get the best or right coffee,” Ameta says. “The company that buys the coffee says ‘give me this quality and we’ll give you this price’, but the farmer doesn’t know what to do with the coffee. Until the company or expert tells them ‘if you pick the right cherry and process it this way, it will give you higher quality and we’ll pay you more for this batch’. If the coffee stays the same, so does the price.”

With many industry actors and aid agencies working to change this dynamic, PWJ’s Ebizawa says Timor-Leste’s outlook remains positive.

“These days, many producers notice the importance of quality, and generally, the coffee has been improving,” Ebizawa says.

“People will come to know Timor-Leste through its coffee, like famous producing countries in Africa and South America.” G C R

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PROFILE Simonelli

A NEW FRONTIER GLOBAL COFFEE REPORT DISCOVERS WHY THE VICTORIA ARDUINO E1 PRIMA IS A VERSATILE ONE-GROUP ESPRESSO MACHINE SETTING A NEW STANDARD WITH INFINITE OPPORTUNITIES.

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ictoria Arduino is used to product launches that invite hundreds of guests to marvel at its latest creation. There’s entertainment, cocktails and crowds of iPhones that hover over every inch of the machine to get the perfect ‘Instagram-worthy’ shot.

This time around, the Italian machine manufacturer had to think differently.

With COVID-19 restrictions abolishing celebrations in-person, the company unveiled its E1 Prima one-group espresso machine on 18 September with an online video that, at the time of print, had been watched by more than 20,000 people across the globe.

Star of the launch video, Simonelli Group Vice President Marco Feliziani, says the virtual result was ever better than he expected.

“We had more people attend our virtual launch than we could have physically had in one room,” he tells Global Coffee Report. “It wasn’t easy to launch the E1 Prima in this way, but I’m so happy with the team, the way we were able to unite, and what we have achieved together. We have created a new standard for a one-group machine in a time many may not have expected us to.”

Catering to the home market has always been part of the Victoria Arduino’s strategy, which

Victoria Arduino’s one-group E1 Prima machine reflects beauty and versatility.

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it did with the launch of its Theresia machine in 2013, but Feliziani admits market needs have altered quite substantially, and customer expectations have heightened.

“Before the coronavirus, people were constantly busy and looked for coffee options that were fast and convenient,” Feliziani says.

“Now, consumers are spending more time at home and are looking for an exclusive coffee experience outside the coffee shop. Due to the rapid change in market needs as a result of the pandemic, Victoria Arduino has the opportunity to tap into a new demographic of coffee drinkers who are interested in consuming high-quality espresso at home.”

While the retail market is rapidly advancing, the E1 Prima’s compact size and high-end functionality makes it more than just a domestic machine for professionals or enthusiasts.

“The E1 Prima is versatile. It’s advanced enough to complement coffee shops, restaurants, roasters, office spaces, even young people who want to enter this industry with a small coffee cart,” Feliziani says.

It wasn’t coincidental that Victoria Arduino launched the E1 Prima during Milan’s Design Week at the Cappellini showroom.

Much like the city’s reputation for style, E1 Prima’s unique shape and array of available colours and textures mirrors the beauty and design trends of the season.

“People who don’t know much about coffee can invest in a piece of design first, and then discover a love for coffee,” Feliziani says. “And for those who do appreciate good coffee, they can celebrate an amazing machine

that delivers delicious espresso and looks architecturally beautiful in their home.”

The E1 Prima offers a sustainable alternative that considers the machine’s environmental impact in terms of economic and energy savings.

It incorporates Victoria Arduino’s New Engine Optimization (NEO) technology that represents a new approach to heating water for coffee extraction.

NEO technology was first developed for Victoria Arduino’s Eagle One commercial espresso machine, but the technology proved to be so compact that it is easily adapted into the E1 Prima without compromise. The instant heating system has a unique insulation mechanism that requires a significantly smaller stainless-steel boiler because only the required water for extraction is heated. The boiler maintains high pressure levels to allow greater dry and saturated steam production with an elevated power/speed ratio.

Innovative insulating material is used to avoid any possible energy dispersion. This way, Prima is ready to use in just eight minutes.

Users also have a clear conscience that their means of coffee production is helping lower energy consumption and reducing harmful carbon emissions into the environment.

The E1 Prima features Victoria Arduino’s New Engine Optimization technology to maximise energy savings.

“It may be a little step but even then, it’s still a step in the right direction,” Feliziani says.

The E1 Prima runs on a 8-amp socket, meaning it can be plugged straight into a wall with an in-built water tank or plumbed water supply both available in the one unit.

While the machine shares a similar shape and technological features as the Eagle One, the E1 Prima is its own model. Unlike the Eagle One, it doesn’t have a display interface to control the extraction. Instead, Victoria Arduino has created a mobile app to allow users to set the temperature, see the extraction time, and program the steam and hot water. The user can also use the app to verify the machines’ performance, turn it on and off, and set the energy-saving mode. The best part, Feliziani says, is the ability to create recipes and share them with friends or to a professional machine in a coffee shop to replicate – great for those who operate chains or own more than one E1 Prima machine.

“This is a really interactive platform that invites the customer to connect with the community of Prima users who share the same value, machine, and interests as they do,” Feliziani says.

“Connectivity is the future. In fact, one of our customers in the Middle East has already told us that as of next year, he will only accept products in his store that are connected to ‘the Cloud’.”

The E1 Prima has all the features and functions of a professional machine, but one thing Feliziani stresses, is its ease of use.

“You can choose to simply push the buttons on the machine to extract a delicious coffee, or go further into the programming and use the app to perfect the extraction,” he says. “Either way, we want people to extract their coffee in the right way, whether they have a high level of skill or not. The easier it is, the more you enjoy it.”

The first batch of E1 Prima machines were in production just one week postlaunch. The first 200 arrived in the second week of October, with 20 already being tested by cafés such as boutique Cafezal in Milan with a community of dedicated high-end coffee drinkers.

“This is a great experiment for our market,” Feliziani says. “The E1 Prima is a machine that cares about the raw material inside it but is also for entertainment.

We want people to take pleasure from the coffee making experience. If we can get more people to enjoy making quality coffee, the more they will enjoy drinking it.”

The launch of E1 Prima presents Victoria Arduino with a unique opportunity to showcase its products to a new audience. Feliziani says this presents an exciting challenge, and a step in a new direction for the Italian manufacturer.

“We see the potential in the E1 Prima. The technology is top-class – and I’m a mechanical engineer so I really believe this. The design is beautiful, it’s an affordable price, and the result is something I’m 100 per cent happy with. It really has been a team effort. I couldn’t be prouder,” Feliziani says.

“This is an opportunity to grow the Victoria Arduino brand on a bigger scale than ever before and have more people around the world drinking quality coffee at home – now we just need to get it into their hands.” G C R For more information, visit www.victoriaarduino.com/eagleoneprima

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PROFILE Neuhaus Neotec

BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUM IN A YEAR OF CHANGE, NEUHAUS NEOTEC HAS APPLIED ITS SKILLS FOR HOT AIR ROASTING INTO TRADITIONAL DRUM ROASTING TECHNOLOGY – WITH ITS OWN UNIQUE SPIN.

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or a long time, Neuhaus Neotec has led the coffee industry when it comes to forward-thinking fluidised bed or ‘hot air’ roasting thanks to its Rotational Flexible Batch (RFB) technology. Now, the German manufacturer is applying its expertise to a more traditional system, the drum roaster.

“We believe in our hot air roasting technology, and our success with it tells us we’re not wrong.

But some customers have had 100 years of experience with drum roasters and don’t have the same connection to hot air roasters,” says Lars Henkel, Head of Marketing at Neuhaus Neotec.

“They believe in this traditional technology and there is a big market for drum roasters. As a systems supplier of all kinds of equipment for the coffee industry – from green coffee up to packaging – we don’t want to turn our backs to this market.”

Neuhaus Neotec first launched its CTR drum roaster series more than a decade ago, in response to demand from several largescale coffee roasters for such a system. Two global players in coffee roasting contributed to its development, with the first model installed in a plant for JDE subsidiary Kraft Foods in 2009.

The CTR saw some early success, however, after drum roaster manufacturer IMS joined the Kahl Group in 2012, the decision was made for Neuhaus Neotec to focus more on hot air roasting to reduce competition between the sister companies. However, the situation changed again in 2019, when the insolvency of IMS ended its cooperation in the Kahl Group.

“We still received regular requests for drum roasters, and several customers decided to have both technologies in their house. The CTR is a very good machine, but we felt we could not push development of our own drum roasting technology, until recently,” Henkel says.

“Customers usually have a clear preference, so we don’t feel our drum roasting technology is in competition with the RFB. We believe there is room for both technologies.”

The new CTR II drum roaster takes what worked about the original CTR while combining many of the innovations Neuhaus Neotec has discovered about coffee roasting in the years since.

The first machine was noteworthy for its optimum accessibility to all maintenance areas, a factor carried across to the CTR II. Rather than a small flap providing access to the drum for cleaning and servicing, the roaster features a ‘front door’ that opens completely.

A lockout-tagout safety system allows the drum to be quickly and safely transferred to service mode.

Under normal operation, the drum is guided over its entire circumference, with additional guide rollers only securing the drum during maintenance. Henkel says this noticeably reduces the

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Neuhaus Neotec Managing Directors Dr. Victoria Behrmann and Lukas Werner celebrate the launch of the CTR II series.

Caption

noise level while roasting.

“Many design considerations were carried over from the original, but many of the main features, like the art of heat production and provision, is completely reinvented,” Henkel says.

“The general idea of a drum roaster is to heat the beans slowly on a rotating pan, but we know from our hot air roasters that the heat transfer to the bean is better through air than by contact with the metal wall.”

For this reason, the CTR II’s gas flame doesn’t directly heat the drum. Instead, an external burner heats the air, which flows homogeneously around the double-walled drum, preventing hot spots and applying heat to the entire coffee batch in an identical manner.

“If you separate the heat source from the drum, you can add more features to change the temperature much faster compared to a conventional design,” Henkel says.

“For example, we added a flap system

between the drum and burner. This is a technology we have first patented for our hot air roaster and that allows you to reduce the temperature of the airstream very fast. This widens the range of possibilities to adjust your roasting profile.”

The burner and pipe system are insulated with an external mineral wool that holds less heat than typical brick insulation, also allowing for greater flexibility in temperature ranges.

“Nowadays, there is a high diversity of ways to consume coffee – filter, capsule, instant – that require special roasting profiles,” Henkel says.

“Our first thought during development is always ‘how can we make the roasting more flexible?’ For that, you have to think of opportunities to alter the temperature in very fast ways.”

Henkel says dark roast profiles are still popular with largescale roasters who need consistent and strong flavours when working with commercial qualities and quantities. For Neuhaus Neotec is relaunching its CTR drum roaster series.

these cases, Neuhaus Neotec offers its additional Dark Roast System, which has been successfully used for RFB hot air technology for several years to safely roast up to 35 on a Colortest scale.

“When you roast dark, the CO (carbon monoxide content) increases, but you have to keep it on a safe level,” Henkel says. “Our system consists of several air flaps to dilute the atmosphere within the closed recirculation cycle in a controlled way through the recipe.”

To create those recipes and The CTR series feature a “door” to the roasting drum for wide accessibility. operate the machine, Neuhaus Neotec has implemented a wellestablished modular programming platform from Siemens that can easily be customised to individual requirements.

“If the customer asks for a special feature we have not yet considered, we can easily add another program module without having to start from the ground up. This reduces the costs for individual solutions,” Henkel says.

New visualisation software makes it possible to scale the user interface to any size of display – such as PC or touch panel – without any loss of quality, also reducing costs of customisation. iO-Link communication-based sensor technology can be managed centrally and make remote maintenance possible in many cases. Henkel says this is part of Neuhaus Neotec’s standard scope of delivery so its service team can provide fast and efficient support worldwide.

The CTR II is being developed in two sizes, with batches of 360 and 720 kilograms, equating to roughly 2000 and 4000 kilograms per hour. The first CTR II, of the larger variety, was installed in an under-production coffee plant in Japan in October.

“This customer works with both drum and hot air roasters, depending on the location and preferences of plant managers. Our advantage is that we can offer both on a high-quality level,” Henkel says.

Neuhaus Neotec also invited a select group of customers to preview the CTR II roaster at its Ganderkesee site in September. Henkel says the response was consistently positive. “They were happy with the design and understood its features and advantages, so we see good potential in the market for this machine,” he says.

Neuhaus Neotec is increasing its presence in the drum roaster market further in 2021 with new designs and technical features. The next in-development model will feature a capacity range of 1000 to 3000 kilograms per hour and will share the CTR II’s front door design and external afterburner.

Neuhaus Neotec cooperates with strong and experienced foreign partners for the production of the mechanical parts, which leads to high synergy effects like cost reduction without compromising on quality. Neuhaus Neotec provides the complete control unit.

“Our partner is quite successful with his own products in his domestic market. Combined with our experience and worldwide customer network, we see fantastic opportunities for this joint venture,” Henkel says.

“Through both drum roasters, we will reach new customers with which to form close relationships. No other company has as good a reputation for hot air roasting as we do. Now, we will build the same reputation for drum roasting technology.” G C R For more information, visit www.neuhaus-neotec.de/en/coffee-processing

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PROFILE Cafetto

It just

makes sense WHY A CLEAN MACHINE IS INTEGRAL TO UNLEASHING THE FULL FLAVOUR POTENTIAL OF COFFEE, AND HOW CAFETTO CLEANING PRODUCTS ARE AN EFFECTIVE SOLUTION.

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elicious coffee doesn’t just magically appear in the cup. It takes extreme care from each sector of the supply chain, right down to the equipment in which it’s dispensed from.

Former Swiss Barista Champion André Eiermann knows this too well. He was once offered an “amazing coffee” from Honduras, but the coffee didn’t taste as clean, transparent, or sweet as Eiermann expected it to be.

“I asked the barista to show me the inside of the portafilter. After having seen the dirty portafilter I asked him to clean the machine.

The following experience was totally different: the espresso tasted super sweet, clean, and the flavours of peach and plums were beautifully crisp. And finally, you could even taste the delicate champagne flavours in the aftertaste – Finca El Puente at its best,” Eiermann says.

Sadly, that wasn’t Eiermann’s only experience with a poorly maintained espresso machine. It once took him two hours to clean both shower heads of a customer’s two-group machine, which hadn’t seen a cleaning product in several months.

Not only does an unclean machine impact extraction and flow rate, but in-cup quality.

“Coffee out of a poorly cleaned machine can taste, to the extreme, burnt, ashy, oxidised, and rancid. The cup won’t be clean, and you won’t be able to experience the flavour clarity and intensity you would expect from your coffee.

In addition, you will lack the sweetness we are looking for in specialty coffee. Sweetness won’t come through a dirty cup,” Eiermann says.

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He adds that a clean cup should have a pleasant aftertaste and be lingering and juicy at its best. In specialty coffee, even the most delicate flavours should even be detected, such as floral notes.

Doug Bolzon, CEO of cleaning solutions provider Cafetto, says the reality is that poorly maintained equipment will always produce substandard coffee.

To avoid such occurrences, Cafetto has been working hard for the past 15 years to produce a suite of products that are not only environmentally friendly, but effective.

“Cafetto does a vast number of laboratory tests to determine that the product developed is going to effectively clean the machine, but also against various machine components, such as metals and plastics, to ensure that there is no damage done to the machine,” Bolzon says.

“Once these new products have passed lab testing, they are sent out for field trials to ensure they perform.”

In its popular cleaning agent EVO, Cafetto uses plant-based detergents that are specifically chosen to target coffee oils and residue, which includes alkaloids, proteins, lipids and complex acids. Once these oils and residues are removed from a surface, it is important they do not redeposit back onto the surface. So, Cafetto also adds ingredients that suspend and carry away coffee oils and particulates from the machine.

Bolzon says regular cleaning not only will extend the life of coffee equipment but produces better tasting coffee.

“People are fanatical about their coffee equipment and getting their hands on great coffee beans. So why wouldn’t you clean your equipment to guarantee it is kept pristine and at the same time experience the wonderful flavours of the coffee?” Bolzon asks.

Claudiu Filip of Bean2cup Tech Support in Ireland says 80 per cent of his customers are educated on the importance of regular machine cleaning, but every now and then he finds a culprit.

“The first thing I do when I’m called out to a service is clean the machine. I will put Cafetto EVO into a blind filter and circulate it through the group heads,” Filip says.

“Only when the machine is clean do I begin servicing, because then I’ll be able to really assess what the problem is. If it’s a result of not cleaning the machine, I’ll know.”

Cafetto cleaning products ensure coffees taste as clean and sweet as intended.

Filip says the most common issue from an irregularly cleaned machine is a blocked brew valve.

“Because of the build up of coffee oils and residue, water can’t pass through properly, meaning a machine could be running on 50 per cent less capacity,” Filip says. “The two other common signs are when we have to change the group seals and shower discs. If they aren’t cleaned properly, you’ll see how blocked they are, and you’ll be able to taste it in the cup.”

Filip believes in the Cafetto range and its ability to “do exactly as it says on the packet”. He says the best proof of customers adhering to regular cleaning is when they ring up asking for more Cafetto products, because regular cleaning not only extends the life of the coffee machine, but results in less call-outs for technicians and less bills for café owners.

Reigning Australian Barista Champion and Ona Coffee Wholesale Manager, Matthew Lewin, says it’s important to create a consistent cleaning routine and let your palate guide your decisions.

“Every morning, dial in a few shots to season the café’s espresso machine with coffee oils prior to tasting. Identify and record the qualities and best expression for each coffee, such as ‘high quality sweetness, smooth texture with pleasant dark chocolate tones throughout.’ Refer to this data throughout the day as the benchmark for how your coffee should taste,” Lewin says. “If you start to observe a lower quality sweetness in the cup, gritty texture or undesirable heavier taste experience – foreign flavours that shouldn’t be there from that morning recipe you set – then most likely it’s time to clean.”

One flavour Lewin says we shouldn’t be afraid of however, is bitterness. It’s a key component on the World Barista Championship score card and an integral part of having a balanced espresso shot.

“At a certain level, bitterness needs to be present with all specialty coffee, just of a high quality – think delicious coco bitterness or grapefruit peel. When you notice bitterness becoming gritty, or that the texture becomes rough, dominating the refined sweetness and specialty flavours in the cup, then it’s very likely your dialled in morning coffee is being compromised by a dirty set-up,” Lewin says.

At Ona Coffee stores in Australia, Lewin says regular cleaning occurs during daily service, especially when 90 per cent of its coffee volumes are milk-based. This means the roasted coffee is fully developed and will excrete lots of oils through the machine’s group heads. It will also amplify residual, tainted flavours much quicker than say a lighter roasted coffee which doesn’t have such heavy compounds.

To manage a regular cleaning cycle, the Ona team sets timers every 60 to 90 minutes to remind them to back flush, clean the shower heads, and wipe down all pieces of equipment before using Cafetto products at the end of the day. They also set timers on their special blends or espresso-focused ginders for black coffees to indicate when it was last used. Grinders also excrete “dirty, oxidised coffee and oils” that needs to be regularly cleaned with Cafetto Grinder Clean.

“We have a dial-in sheet to say what the coffee should taste like. We also get our team to taste the coffee at a minimum every two hours, or about 45 minutes after a cleaning cycle has finished. That’s the only real way to assert how often you should be cleaning your coffee based on how much you’re using and its roast profile,” Lewin says. “Nine out of 10 coffees we make are milk-based, so these are the most important coffees to get right. In coffee, consistency is always front of mind. It’s the hardest thing to get right, but it also applies to having a consistent cleaning schedule.” G C R For more information, visit www.cafetto.com

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AUTOMATION Bühler

On the right path BÜHLER STANDS AT THE FOREFRONT OF AUTOMATION IN COFFEE PROCESSING, BUILDING ENTIRELY AUTOMATED PRODUCTION LINES WITH AUTO-CORRECTIVE PROFILE CONTROL TO GUARANTEE ROAST CONSISTENCY.

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hen Bühler launched the InfinityRoast in 2014, it had three objectives for the industrial coffee roaster: to be the most flexible machine in its class on the market, to have operational excellence in terms of energy use and maintenance, and maximum quality consistency of the coffee it produces.

To achieve this last goal, Dr. Stefan Schenker, Head of Business Unit Coffee at Bühler, says the Swiss manufacturer had to completely rethink the process control methods that coffee roasters had used up until that point.

“Most roasting systems simply have a burner directly attached to the roasting drum where all you can really influence is the temperature of the hot air that enters the chamber. You can roast in different steps and form a profile, but it’s really just different levels of hot air temperature at different times,” Schenker says.

“The coffee roasting process is affected by many external factors, like weather and humidity, whether the machine is just starting up or has been running all day, and the moisture content of the raw material as you move from one green coffee to the next. If you just control your inlet hot air temperature, the product temperature is not stable. This product temperature [of the beans] is what is actually important for flavour generation and how it evolves during the roasting process.”

With this in mind, Bühler focused the InfinityRoast’s profile control on the temperature of the beans themselves rather than the surrounding air. A well-placed and sensitive temperature probe accurately measures the bean surface temperature and allows the

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Auto-corrective profile control ensures batches follow the recipe set by the operator.

machine to adjust the roast process accordingly.

Schenker calls this auto-corrective profile control a highlight of the InfinityRoast.

“Once a profile or ‘master curve’ has been set, the auto-corrective system makes sure we follow the pre-defined and timed product temperature curve very precisely,” Schenker says.

“Whatever happens or whichever factors are at play, the system makes sure we stay on the master curve with the precision of plus/minus one centigrade. This way, the beans always follow the correct temperature evolution and stop the roasting process at the right time.”

While Schenker says many other modern roasters now measure the bean temperature, they’re not able to use this information to regulate the process. Instead, an experienced roast master must manually check the beans mid-roast to determine if adjustments should be made.

“You need a special roasting system for the InfinityRoast’s style of auto-corrective profile control, and there are hardware and software elements involved,” Schenker says.

“On the hardware side, you need a very responsive system. We have a fast-reacting gas burner which only takes a few seconds to adjust the energy input into the roasting chamber. On top of

AUTOMATION Bühler

that, there is a small bypass into the roasting chamber where we can perform fine adjustments of how much air and energy enter the roasting chamber. With these two independent control loops, we can achieve this precision.”

The Infinity Profile Control software system monitors and controls all of these functions, as well as daily operations and enabling profile creation. Schenker says the level of control InfinityRoast has over the process provides it with a great degree of flexibility when it comes to these roast profiles.

“Imagine a chart depicting all the coffee roasters in the world, with roasting times on one axis and air-to-bean ratio on the other. In one corner, you’d find drum roasters designed for longer roasting times and a low air-to-bean ratio, and in the opposite corner, fluidised bed roasters using a lot of air to keep beans in motion for short roasting times. InfinityRoast can cover this full spectrum of operating conditions,” he says.

“We have conducted many trials with our customers where they ask us to do flavour matching.

They want to update their roaster, but have an existing product on the market and say ‘can you match that flavour?’ Time and time again, we’ve shown we can.”

The InfinityRoast’s “operational excellence” was put to the test when Norwegian roaster Joh Johannson approached Bühler with the task of developing the “world’s most efficient climate- and environmental-friendly coffee processing plant”.

To make this possible, Bühler installed two InfinityRoast2000 units in the site, equipped with green bean preheaters that Schenker says can reduce energy usage by up to 25 per cent alone. Heat exchangers capture some of the energy released during the process to be stored and redistributed. A Regenerative Thermal Oxidation emission control system allows smart control of the air currents, which in turn enables more heat to be stored and returned to the process. These in total reduce the plant’s energy usage by 50 per cent, with the rest largely compensated with extensive solar panelling.

“For [Joh Johannson], sustainability is not only something they write about in their annual report.

For them, it’s a business model. They see it as a competitive advantage in the market,” Schenker says.

While the Norwegian site is a leader in the field of sustainability, Schenker says a current project of Bühler’s for a large coffee capsule producer in the United States represents the next step in automation.

“It is a greenfield site, where Bühler is installing the complete processing technology from green bean intake, storage and blending, roasting, and grinding, up to the interface with packaging. For this customer, we are making the entire plant automated,” he says.

“This customer came to Bühler and said, ‘I want to have a fully automated coffee factory’.

They gave us access to their [enterprise resource planning] (ERP) system, where they create their production schedules, and we took care of the rest.”

The site features two InfinityRoast-3000 systems and two smaller relocated existing roasters, eight grinders, and several packaging lines, with an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes of roasted coffee per year. From start to end, the processing line is fitted with automated equipment and an interface connected to the ERP system.

Schenker says the plant can run with an absolute minimum of staff, with it feasible for one person in the control room to operate the entire processing line.

“From an automation point of view, you press the startup button and it works from InfinityRoast is the flagship roasting there,” he says. “It’s the highest degree of machine of Bühler’s coffee portfolio. automation I’ve seen in my 20 years in the

coffee industry.”

Automation is a growing trend in many industries, and with it providing better quality control while taking pressure off onsite staff, Schenker says coffee will be the same.

“Our customers want to have better control over quality consistency. Fully automated plants give this and an operational benefit. Each unit of a line is aligned with the others, so you have automatic optimisation of the entire process,” he says.

“For this reason, it’s also in the strategy of Bühler to be at the forefront of digitalisation.

We are already looking into next generation systems.”

Bühler has partnered with Microsoft to investigate how its customers – in coffee and other food industries – could benefit from big data and, in a way, learn from each other.

“We will be able to make sure our customers benefit from best practices all around the world,” Schenker says.

“That’s a big mission for the automation of the future – to connect your factory to a Bühler cloud solution, and in turn, receive plant optimisation so you can run your factory more efficiently.” G C R For more information, visit automation.buhlergroup.com/industries/coffee

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AUTOMATION Cropster

A glimpse into the future SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS LIKE CROPSTER AND FABSCALE ARE LEADING THE DIGITAL GROWTH OF THE COFFEE INDUSTRY – WITH FEATURES RANGING FROM DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS TO PREDICTING ROAST OUTCOMES.

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rtificial intelligence (AI) Bean Curve Prediction is the first of many was once considered a AI features to come from Cropster. piece of science fiction, and while we’re a long way from machines taking over the world or passing for people, it has taken leaps and bounds in recent years. Machine learning, put simply, involves a computer using a large existing database to make decisions or predictions about something happening now or in the future. Through Bean Curve Prediction, Cropster has put this technology to work for the coffee industry.

“Bean Curve Prediction provides immediate benefits to all of our customers when they roast. It makes sure they stay on track during production roasting, leading to better consistency and less wasted batches, saving time and money,” Cropster Roast Product Manager Lisa Gringl says.

Bean Curve Prediction begins 60 seconds into a roast and appears as a dashed curve extending past the running bean temperature curve. Gringl says it is accurate within 1°C for two minutes into the future and 0.5°C within 30 seconds. She adds that Bean Curve Prediction shows its true potential before production, during sample roasting where profiles and recipes are still being set for new green coffees.

“With this tool, you need less sample batches to develop your new product. When you get a new coffee, you’re usually starting with a blank slate. Bean Curve Prediction has learnt from thousands of anonymised roasts, providing a tool to immediately see where that roast will go.

It even learns from new roasts and what you do at the moment, so it gets smarter,” she says.

“A third benefit we hadn’t considered during development, and discovered during beta testing, was to train staff. If a new roaster joins the team and you want to teach them how the coffee reacts to specific changes, you can do that with the curve prediction because it updates every second and takes every gas or airflow change into account.”

The development of Bean Curve Prediction began several years ago, when Cropster approached several of its customers to gather data and insight from the roasting process.

Cropster was overwhelmed by the interest in the project, with many customers wanting to find correlations in their own data.

A team of data scientists and mathematicians uses that data pool as an “incubator or test bed” for new developments in AI for Cropster. While Bean Curve Prediction was Cropster’s first AI program in the market, Gringl says it was not the first in development, with many

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more on the way.

“We try to pose questions or fulfill tasks that are beneficial for Cropster users. As an example, we’re working on predicting inventory, so ‘when am I going to run out of a green component?’ This is something we can predict,” she says.

But AI is only one way Cropster works automation into its solutions for the coffee industry. With a product and supply chain as complex as coffee, Gringly says automation can be implemented in many ways and stages.

“AI is about finding processes that are standardised and repetitive, then breaking them down into small pieces or concrete tasks, and training a system to repeat those tasks,” she says.

“At Cropster, we focus on three areas of automation: one is machine automation for roasting, another is workflow automation in the field and for traders in the coffee lab, and the

AUTOMATION Cropster

third is workflow automation within roasteries.”

For workflow automation in the field, Cropster launched QR codes several years ago that can be shared alongside coffees, and due to their positive reception, has continued to widen these avenues for sharing data.

Using the Cropster Origin app, producers can capture field data and automatically share it worldwide. On the other end, traders and roasters can cup coffee and provide immediate feedback to the farmers. Direct access to this information saves both ends the time of collating and sending this data to the other.

“Getting coffee from origin to the final cup involves many partners and passes through a lot of hands, so it’s very important that information is shared with a lot of efficiency and accuracy,” Gringl says. “In the beginning, just a few early adopters wanted to use the feature. Now, as they get more tech savvy, we receive daily enquiries from customers that want this workflow automation.”

Inside the roastery, Cropster has developed automated processes to improve production planning as well as workflow.

The Order to Roast program, for example, collates coffee orders and uses that information to help create a production schedule. This information can either be entered manually or through integration with eCommerce programs like Shopify or WooCommerce. Gringl says this type of integration is important to workflow automation, and a key focus of Cropster going forward.

“With large customers who use [enterprise resource planning] platforms, if you can connect systems, that means less or no manual data entry, saving time and reducing the chances of errors,” she says.

“We work directly with these customers and their IT departments so they can integrate in Cropster via our [application programming interface] (API).

“The goal of all this technology is for workers in the plant to get more information to perform their key tasks and use their time more efficiently. Reducing those repetitive tasks will also reduce the errors that take place in a business.” G C R For more information, visit www.cropster.com

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS - fabscale

Going hand-in-hand with automation is the other Industry 4.0 concept of digitalisation. As coffee processing equipment becomes more advanced, the level of data they produce increases. Seeing a gap in the market, Cropster partnered with Probat in 2019 to launch fabscale, an independent cloud-based solution that collates this data from throughout the entire roasting production process and offers rich analytics and notification solutions to increase efficiency.

CEO Christian von Craushaar tells Global Coffee Report there is growing demand from large scale coffee roasters for smart technology that improves workflow and decision making.

“We’re seeing a whole new set of technology become accessible, and it’s leading to a digital transformation process in industrial production,” von Craushaar says.

“The food and coffee industries have been slower than many other forms of manufacturing in adapting these technologies. We see a need, and fabscale wants to be the first comprehensive, entire-plant solution specialised to the coffee industry and production on an industrial level.”

Fabscale’s first product, a dashboard-style display of data, includes a reporting tool, where detailed reports can be produced at the push of a button once important factors have been selected. Von Craushaar says this dashboard provides a base, on which fabscale will build and develop other modules to further automate and streamline the production process.

“One of our upcoming solutions will monitor the condition of the roaster, automating the maintenance component. Preconfigured condition monitoring tells the client, based on the lifespan, overall roast time,

“WE’RE SEEING A WHOLE NEW SET OF TECHNOLOGY BECOME ACCESSIBLE, AND IT’S LEADING TO A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.” Christian von Craushaar fabscale CEO

age, and usage of a component, what and when maintenance tasks need to be done,” he says. “We’re also creating an API so customers can access their own data and implement it in any solutions they’ll need or use certain types or sets of data somewhere else.”

Von Craushaar is looking forward to seeing how the coffee industry will embrace automation in different ways in the near future.

“Automation is about making tasks more efficient, easier to do, and improving workflows. It’s going to make business decisions easier by having all of this information available,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a question of if but when certain technologies will find their place in the industry.”

For more information, visit www.fabscale.com

Fabscale’s first product is a dashboard collating data from the coffee plant.

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AUTOMATION De’Longhi

Home run THE DE’LONGHI MAESTOSA PROVIDES CONSUMERS WITH THE ABILITY TO REPRODUCE A BARISTA-QUALITY COFFEE TO THEIR OWN LIKING, TIME AND TIME AGAIN. Maestosa was developed with versatility and variety in mind.

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s a leader in the global domestic coffee machine market, it has long been a goal of De’Longhi to provide consumers with a café-quality experience in their own home.

Since its first fully automatic machine hit the market in 2004, De’Longhi has increased the functionality and performance of its machines as new technology becomes available.

This work culminated in 2019, with the launch of the Maestosa luxury automatic coffee machine. Italian for “majestic”, Jessica Hull, Senior Category Manager for De’Longhi Australia, says there are two key markets for the brand’s flagship model.

“There’s those looking for that pure indulgence, they want to spoil themselves and have that luxury coffee experience at home.

Then you’ve also got your entertainers. This machine can make multiple coffees very quickly.

It’s easy to use, host a party and give everyone a coffee within a couple of minutes,” Hull says.

“Our focus is providing consumers with the in-home experience of barista-quality coffee. That means adapting the machine to suit their taste, then having it take over and deliver that personalised coffee again and again. It’s all about the coffee, and Maestosa really has been built in every single way to harness the best technology De’Longhi has across all of our coffee machines.”

The Maestosa features two bean hoppers, the first of many features to provide users with added variety. These are equipped with electronic bean sensors to notify the operator when they’re running low.

Each hopper is connected to its own burr grinder to prevent crossover and provide the best in-cup result. These grinders feature precise Adaptive Grinding Technology easily

AUTOMATION De’Longhi

set and adjusted via the ergonomic display screen.

“It’s even tailored to demonstrate how the coffee crema should look, or whether it’s under or over extracted, and suggests which way you should move that grinder, coarser or finer, to get a better grind out of your coffee,” Hull says.

From the grinder, coffee enters the De’Longhi brewing unit where it is tamped for a consistent extraction. A thermoblock unit heats water for pre-infusion and extraction, while a separate heating system steams the milk.

“This allows us to switch straight from coffee to milk preparation without any waiting time and enables a quick heat-up of the thermoblock too. From turning on the machine, it only takes 25 to 30 seconds before you can hit that espresso button,” Hull says.

A double outlet on the LatteCrema milk system means two milk-based beverages can be prepared at the same time. The desired consistency of milk foam can be selected on the display and saved for each milk drink, or alternatively, the operator can steam milk to their own liking with an attachable steam wand.

But the milk steaming system and stainless-steel thermal carafe provide Maestosa with the tools to make many more beverages than just your standard hot coffees. From hot chocolates and teas to cold foamy milk and iced coffees, Hull says there’s a variety of recipes you can mix with the Mixcarafe.

“It’s not just a home espresso machine. Maestosa takes it to the next level of beverage making,” she says.

While the variety of beverages the machine can produce is extensive, what really elevates Maestosa in the domestic market is the ability to set and store personalised recipes for each of those drinks.

These can be set on the control panel or through the De’Longhi Coffee Link app, which is compatible with all higher-end De’Longhi units. Multiple user profiles can even be set, so different people using the machine can keep track of their own recipes.

Every variable influences the recipe – including grind size and dose, brew length and temperature, and level of milk steaming. De’Longhi Product Trainer Cheryl Bosworth tells Global Coffee Report being able to save the temperature profile in a pre-set profile is a first for De’Longhi and a game changer in the domestic market.

“These are all factors a barista influences while making a coffee. So, to get the barista-level quality out of a fully automatic machine, you need to be able to customise it to the coffee beans you’re using,” Bosworth says.

“It’s all about your personal taste, the one thing that’s really subjective. We all have our own ways we like to drink coffee and there’s more to it than just using the beans you like.”

This feature is a natural progression for De’Longhi, which has always featured customisation in its coffee machines. Bosworth says this desire to be better is a common trait for Italian companies and is part of the culture of De’Longhi.

“I’ve worked for several Italian manufacturers and they all always strive for excellence, without changing so much that the product feels different to the consumer,” she says.

“De’Longhi has mastered the art of that, listened to the feedback of its different global markets, and taken it into account to look at ways to really enhance the experience of the consumer.”

De’Longhi’s Italian origins even influence the sleek and elegant design of Maestosa. Out of 800 staff working at De’Longhi’s plant in Treviso, Hull says only 20 were selected for the special team to handle Maestosa’s production to maintain a high standard and consistency.

“We have one single person handcraft each machine from start to finish, including all quality control, testing, and individual components,” Hull says.

“You can see the standard and materials used are really high class, with an ultra-mirror stainless steel top, striped stainless-steel body and bright black mirrored glass front panel.”

This careful approach to crafting Maestoa makes it a durable machine as well as a versatile one.

Maestosa was designed and tested to be able to prepare 45,000 beverages over its lifespan.

Hull says this durability is shared across the De’Longhi portfolio.

“Recently, a customer sent us a picture of their De’Longhi fully automatic approximately a

A double outlet on the LatteCrema milk system means two milk-based beverages can be prepared at the same time.

decade old that had 20,363 coffees on its stats.

It was still performing wonderfully every day,” she says. “It shows how long the machines can last if consumers are looking after them. You can get a lifetime of use out of them.”

COVID-19 has seen a surge in people making coffee at home – one De’Longhi experienced firsthand – with sales of its machines and accessories up in most categories. Bosworth says this has made it more vital for coffee roasters and business to cater to this market and for domestic machines to be able to produce consistent, high-quality coffee.

“A lot of people think they want a manual, but when they get it home, they’re so overwhelmed by how to use it they get frustrated and don’t want to go through the continual process of making a perfect coffee every time,” Bosworth says.

“They become a fully automatic customer because they find out that from a De’Longhi machine, they can get a quality cup of coffee just by pressing a button.” G C R For more information, visit www.delonghi.com

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AUTOMATION Eversys

Exploring limitless possibilities EVERSYS AND IOVENT JOIN FORCES TO PUT SELF-SERVICE COFFEE IN THE SPOTLIGHT THANKS TO ALGORITHMS, SOFTWARE INTEGRATION, AND A MARKET BASED ON CONVENIENCE AND GREAT COFFEE.

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magine walking into your local coffee shop and having the coffee machine recognise your face. The interface then asks if you’d like the same order as the day before. If the response is “yes”, the order is made. If you’d like something different, then you can indulge the machine in the exact type, size, and temperature of your beverage before you pay, collect, and walk out the door.

“It’s not such a remote concept. There may even be a time when people control a coffee machine with their hand movement or even through their individual retina. The future in terms of connectivity is limitless,” says Eversys Chief Commercial Officer Kamal Bengougam.

“The future is about making transactions simple and seamless to deliver great coffee, anytime, anywhere.”

Coffee shops around the world are tapping

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into automation and the more visible it is, the more accepted it becomes for consumers to use.

True Bird micro café in the United States has reinvented the vending environment and Know in China is using robot arms to produce latte art as good, if not better, than some humans. Beat in South Korea, and Roasting Plant in the United Kingdom are just some of the other venues that have discovered how to successfully integrate automation into coffee-making while leaving humanised greetings up to the barista.

Over the past few years, self-service German interface company Iovent has formed a strategic partnership with Swiss manufacturer Eversys to create the algorithms, interface and software integration of new products currently in development.

Iovent CEO Sebastian Huber first saw the potential for automated coffee production about three years ago and created an under-counter system using an Eversys super automatic machine.

This setup hid the machine and put the coffee on centre stage with a simple tap to dispense the liquid, and an iPad to control it.

“The API (application programming interface) from Eversys made it possible because it meant we could talk to the machine and use it as a coffee factory to customise each order,” Huber says.

The under-counter machine was initially presented at an industry show in Stuttgart, and Huber was stunned by the volume of people who asked, “but how do we pay for the coffee?”

The prototype was designed for office and gastronomic use. He hadn’t considered it would be the perfect solution to the self-service coffee market.

“At the time, we were operating on a Windows system. We had no clue how to connect it with any payment system. There was no coin exchange or in-built credit card with a USB plug,” Huber says.

As luck would have it, by September 2019, Microsoft published a framework that now enables Iovent to run software independently from the coffee platform. Huber says he now has greater opportunities to work with Eversys to create self-service environments. This means customising external interface screens, adding shopping cart features, enabling contactless transactions, providing full payment options, and monitoring telemetry data.

“When you look at the success of Apple, Google, and Amazon, the biggest capital/asset they have to work with is data. Gathering data is something we’re really focused on now and creating a big data warehouse where we gather the information from all the transactions. If we can determine who bought the coffee, where and when, find out why they did, even think about using facial recognition technology to get to know the customer without their name, then we’ll be able to

AUTOMATION Eversys

get a better understanding of beverage preference country by country,” Huber says. “The more data we gather in the end, the more intelligent the system becomes.”

Aside from customers wanting advanced technology and creative design from a coffee machine, Bengougam says in-cup quality can’t be overlooked.

“I think the winners of tomorrow will be the companies that deliver a consistent quality in the cup – the quality of the product has to be the foundation of everything. It’s not just about the speed of service, but that what you’re getting in the cup is the same quality you would get if you went to a coffee shop. When I look at automaton, it’s not there to replace the barista. It’s there to provide a real service, and add value to them,” he says.

“When you look at the world of automation, in Australia for example, you currently have mechanical tools that help the barista. You have machines that grind and tamp the coffee and texture milk on their behalf. At the end of it, what does the barista do if the machines have taken care of all the variables? Technology is only a means of facilitation that enables customers to have access to great coffee.”

A coffee machine cannot taste so it is not meant to replace the human palate. It cannot create emotion, but it can produce a consistent quality cup in large numbers, and that, Bengougam says, is the reason why more people should support automation.

“There is nothing more relevant or more important than making people feel welcome, and that’s why the machine will never replace the barista. The role of a human is not to be a factory worker producing routine coffee product, but actually creating that level of humanity, then let the machine do the work,” he says.

In today’s fast-moving environment, Bengougam says companies are investing in products that make our lives simpler. From food delivery services to online shopping platforms like Amazon, a business based on flexibility, businesses are creating environments that mirror the desires of customers. That level of convenience is extending into the coffee market and helping it advance at the same time.

In Coles supermarkets in Australia, Eversys machines are being rolled out across the country to provide customers with a high-quality and convenient way to enjoy their coffee. But beyond that, Eversys imagines an unattended self-service station where customers can make their purchase in a single transaction and add peripheral products.

“The new software Sebastian and his team are integrating will allow customers to customise their order before being prompted if they’d like anything else, such as a donut or croissant. Then you have one point of purchase, a single transaction. The user has absolute flexibility, choice and control,” Bengougam says.

“It’s all about technology mirroring the human experience and making it more efficient, that’s all we do. We’re creating an environment that we believe meets the current needs of the people and of today’s marketplace, without any deterrence to quality.”

Eversys has always recognised the importance of technology and used it as a means to differentiate itself from competition and add value to the market. Thanks to its in-house software development company Delisys, its machines stay at the leading edge of market development. It was one of the first companies to create a touch-screen interface and integrate telemetry systems into its coffee machines, and now, working with people like Huber at Iovent, is recognition that automation will represent a greater share of the market in years to come.

Iovent CEO Sebastian Huber is working with Eversys to develop software that will enhance the user experience.

“IT’S ALL ABOUT TECHNOLOGY MIRRORING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND MAKING IT MORE EFFICIENT, THAT’S ALL WE DO.” Kamal Bengougam Eversys Chief Commercial Officer

“Integration between technologies is becoming more and more important and relevant,” Huber says. “Automation has only really been used in the automotive industry and now we’re beginning to see it adopted in other industries. We have proven that we can use robotics in environments without causing any harm, and I believe it will become part of our ‘new norm’ in our coffee world too.” G C R For more information, visit www.eversys.com/en

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AUTOMATION Franke

Cool customers THE SPECIALTY BEVERAGE STATION (SB1200) FROM FRANKE COFFEE SYSTEMS PROVIDES COFFEE BUSINESSES WITH A VERSATILE PLATFORM TO SHARE THEIR CREATIVITY AND KEEP ON TOP OF THE LATEST COFFEE TRENDS.

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here are dozens of ways to make a coffee, and regardless of the size or type of venue, if it sells coffee, customers expect their drink of choice to be available.

Cold coffees in particular are a growing worldwide trend, especially in the United States and Asia.

With the goal of equipping its customers with a solution that can offer the widest variety of coffees possible, Franke Coffee Systems unveiled the Specialty Beverage Station (SB1200) last year at Host Milano.

“Hot coffee beverages, served with milk and foam, are standard. But cold coffee options are increasing in popularity. The SB1200 combines these options, and the true advantage to its users is the differentiation this offers in the market,” Franke’s Head Coffee Competence Inga Schäper says.

“Trends towards coffee will definitely continue to grow, as people want to explore something new. That also applies for countries which are not so familiar with coffee yet. Through cold beverages, they have another entry to this coffee world.”

From the one station, the flexible SB1200 allows a venue – including petrol stations, convenience stores, hotels, coffee shops, bakeries, and at self-service areas – to serve a variety of hot and cold coffees without needing additional add-on units. Either hot or cold coffee can also be combined with hot or cold milk and milk foam for a variety of beverage drinks.

“People want to enjoy their cappuccino, cold coffee, or whatever their creation. But the customer experience while making it is also very important, especially in the self-service environment,” Schäper says.

“This is possible through an attractive, intuitive user interface that guides the consumer through different choices to create the beverage.”

The SB1200 is a modular system that can be customised to each operator. The station is equipped with a fully automatic coffee machine to produce traditional espresso and milk-based coffees. Franke’s patented iQFlow coffee extraction ensures uniform pressure as water passes through the coffee grounds for maximum flavour, aroma, and consistency. The machine can feature up to three bean hoppers, meaning three different choices of coffee beans.

To offer iced coffee drinks, the machine features optionally Franke’s new Iced Coffee Module, which uses an internal heat exchange system to instantly chill freshly brewed espresso.

Iced coffee is only one way cold coffee can be prepared. Schäper says others, like cold brew, can offer a completely different flavour experience.

“Iced coffee comes from freshly ground and brewed beans and is chilled and served immediately, sometimes over ice or in combination with cold milk. Cold brew, on the other hand, is a cold-extracted and pre-prepared coffee,” she says.

“Cold brew makes the beverage sweeter and less bitter due to the cold extraction. Whereas the iced coffee has also lots of flavour and aroma, but due to the hot extraction process, contains more bitterness and acidity.”

An integrated media pump module in the SB1200 makes it possible to plug in ready-todrink bag-in-box cold brew under the counter to be poured out as the customer demands. This

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“PEOPLE WANT TO ENJOY THEIR CAPPUCCINO, COLD COFFEE, OR WHATEVER THEIR CREATION. BUT THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WHILE MAKING IT IS ALSO VERY IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY IN THE SELF-SERVICE ENVIRONMENT.” Inga Schäper

Franke’s Head Coffee Competence

same pump module system can be used for different milks, seasonal beverages, or other pre-made drinks popular with customers.

Thanks to patented Franke technology, cold brew beverages can be easily created without additional nitrogen equipment or a gas cylinder, both with or without foam topping and with cascading effect.

“This creates an even smoother beverage that is high in texture, so it’s kind of creamy.

It’s the right beverage for people not so used to the taste of coffee but like that creamy feel,” Schäper says.

The differences in these styles of coffee

AUTOMATION Franke

becomes particularly important when considering the tastes and preferences of the local market. Schäper says this should influence how a business markets these coffee options.

“In some countries, people are used to more bitter tastes than acidic notes and prefer those in their coffees. For example, I know from experience the Thai and Taiwanese markets have very different perceptions of bitterness and acidity. The Thai prefer bitter notes in coffee. Whereas Taiwanese people prefer a softer touch and acidity in coffee,” she says.

“There is not just one flavour of cold coffee, and that needs to be highlighted so people can understand how to promote those beverages.”

The versatility of the SB1200 doesn’t end at the coffee itself. Thanks to the number of coffees available, combined with different options for milk and foam, additional powder like chocolate or chai, and up to six types of syrups thanks to the Flavour Station, customers can choose their beverage from a wide menu or even create their own.

“Some consumers will drink the same thing each and every day, but others like to experiment and try something new,” Schäper says. “This willingness to experiment also The SB1200 caters to rising trends and applies to beverage developers. Beside cold demands for variety around the world. brew, the SB1200 offers the possibility to prepare all kinds of beverages. You can creatively develop something extraordinary and new. This can also be done, for example, in combination with a strong beverage brand.

“Beverage variety is part of the development of the industry, and it’s a path we and coffee places must continue to follow.”

All of the beverage’s ingredients – whether syrup, milk foam, hot water, or iced coffee – are dispensed centrally from a single spout with an automatic height adjustment. The spout requires no disassembly, making daily cleaning significantly easier.

Franke’s CleanMaster cleaning function takes care of maintaining the rest of the machine, with minimal effort on behalf of the operator. Schäper says this fully automatic cleaning process is unique in this market segment and ensures that the highest levels of hygiene can be achieved.

Simplicity is just as important in operation as it is in cleaning, and an intuitive 12.1-inch touch display screen guides users through this process.

Payment has also been streamlined. The station offers several on-the-spot options, such as cash and tap-and-go.

And like all of Franke’s machines, the SB1200 can connect to Franke Digital Services, providing valuable insight into coffee machine operation and sales figures, as well as allowing remote management and access. Schäper says this kind of information is one of the benefits of a fully automated coffee system like Franke’s.

“Fully automatics provide the same quality and beverage consistency cup by cup. This is especially important in venues with frequent turnover and untrained staff, which can cause differences

in quality. Within self-service environments they furthermore provide inspiring customer experiences and take into account COVID-19 sanitary and health concerns,” Schäper says.

In order to eliminate the need to touch the coffee machine display, Franke developed a touchless solution. By reading the QR code displayed on the coffee machine screen, with their personal mobile device, the coffee consumer is enabled to proceed with the beverage selection without touching the coffee machine.

With so much versatility and utility, Schäper is excited for the wider coffee community to embrace the SB1200.

“This setup allows for so much creativity, and I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with,” she says. G C R For more information, visit coffee.franke.com

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AUTOMATION Melitta

Past, present, and future MELITTA PROFESSIONAL COFFEE SOLUTIONS OFFERS A FULL SYSTEM AUTOMATIC COFFEE SOLUTION TO ITS CUSTOMERS THAT HAS BEEN SHAPED BY THEIR DEMANDS AND ADAPTS TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL REQUIREMENTS.

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ith 112 years of experience in coffee, Melitta has seen the industry embrace many new trends and technologies. In many cases, the German coffee company even led these developments.

Company founder Melitta Bentz created the hand-held coffee filter as we know it today, and Oliver Welschar, Head of Global Key Account Management for Melitta Professional, says the company was one of the first to manufacture automatic filter coffee machines.

So, when Swiss company Cafina became the first manufacturer to build automatic espresso machines on an industrial level in the 1970s, Melitta saw a natural cohesion between the two brands.

“The Swiss had many Italian tourists. They are famous for their refined and diverse taste in coffee, for their ristrettos, macchiatos, lattes, the list goes on,” Welschar says. “There was always a crowd in the breakfast room. German tourists were easy, you just had to prepare a big batch of filter coffee, but to serve just one Italian family, it takes time. So, very often they would head somewhere else for their coffee. Smart hotel owners realised they were missing an opportunity to sell so much more coffee to their Italian skiing guests in the winter time.

“That was where the idea for automation was born. There was a customer demand and Cafina provided the technology to meet it.”

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Henn na Café in Tokyo takes fully automatics in coffee up a level.

Melitta acquired Cafina in 1988, and automatic coffee machines have been core to its Melitta Professional B2B arm ever since.

“We were the first to do filter coffee, they were the first to do automatics – it was like Adam and Eve coming together,” Welschar says.

Over more than 30 years, Melitta has had plenty of opportunity to develop or innovate its machines. Justin Rejske, Managing Director of Melitta Professional Coffee Solutions Australia, says the company was a pioneer of many of the features now popular in the industry.

He gives the automatic grinder correction of Melitta’s automatic coffee quality (ACS) system as an example.

“We’ve had that technology for 20 years.

We took these high-performing machines and

AUTOMATION Melitta

found ways that they can make corrections during the day,” Rejske says. with a traditional roaster machine placement.

“We know from bag to bag of coffee there can be inconsistencies. In a blend of three or four Looking to the future, the team at Melitta bean origins, the bean size, roast colour, and moisture density can differ, and these impacts grinding predicts an increased demand for unmanned performance. This is where our ACS technology comes in, to make corrections in any deviations in coffee stations, which it has already begun to the coffee to make sure the cup quality stays the same.” experience. Melitta partnered with travel group ACS uses a central processing unit to connect and control the grinder and piston and ensure H.I.S. to launch Henn na Café, a coffee bar coffee consistently hits the pre-set recipe. operated by a robotic arm, in Tokyo, Japan, Hand in hand with ACS is a variable pressure system that allows different levels of pressure to in 2018. be used in the tamping process for individual recipes. Rejske says this is of particular importance In Australia, Melitta is working with IOR to customers with a wide variety of beverages on their menu.

Petroleum to add coffee service to its unmanned “You can have hundreds of different products on the menu with their own level of tamping,” he diesel stops and fuel depots. In Taiwan, another says. “Customers may have different preferences – espresso, double espresso, americano, or even global convenience store chain has chosen the different sizes – and you need to ensure you have a good tamping pressure for each of these products.”

Melitta XT6 for its new and fully automated Welschar adds that while this type of feature is now common in automatics, many have pre-set pressure levels that must be chosen from, whereas Melitta allows customer to type in their desired pressure in kilonewtons.

“The vast majority of our users are happy with sticking to one setting, but some have individual preferences. If you serve a high-end single origin, where every process of harvesting and roasting was made to measure up to certain expectations, these fine details really matter,” Welschar says.

“Our machines can achieve pressure up to 1200 kilonewtons and work consistently, again and again. We guarantee spare parts for up to 10 years, so you can achieve this level of pressure for up to a decade.”

Another feature originating with Melitta, around the same time as ACS, was Clean-In-Place technology, providing its fully automatics with automated cleaning procedures.

“From an operator’s perspective, one of the hardest elements with automatics was the cleaning. The dispensing of coffee is simple enough, you press a button, the coffee comes out,” Rejske says. “We Melitta has spent more than 30 years made it so the operator only had to insert a tablet and did not have developing and improving its fully automatics. to remove any of any components during cleaning.

“We’re not fans of inventing something in our R&D and telling customers they need it. Instead, our innovations and designs are driven by customer demand.” concept stores. “Automation will catch on fastest This mindset means Melitta can tailor its machines to the unique needs of its customers. For in countries already using it in other parts of life, or that are more smart phone driven, like instance, in 2007, McDonald’s Japan showed interest in Melitta’s Alpha unit for a rollout in its stores, China, Taiwan, or Japan”, Welschar says. but required the size of the coffee machine be reduced 40 per cent to fit in its stores.

Melitta totally reconfigured the machine to this demand, with a different interface to fit the While these kinds of solutions are becoming space requirement. Now, across Japan alone, Rejske estimates there are Melitta units that have been more popular thanks to the advent of telemetry similarly customised number in the five-digits. in coffee, Welschar stresses that a one-sizeMelitta tailors its solutions to a large number of customers, ranging from hotels and restaurants fits-all approach should not be taken to the to petrol stations and fast food chains to large retail chains and Swedish furniture stores. technology.

With a long history in coffee service and automatics, Rejske says Melitta also demonstrates the “We work with our customers so they benefits of operating as a complete solutions provider to these customers. can make the most out of this information,” “At Melitta, we always strive for the best quality in the cup. A high-quality coffee bean is Welschar says. “If we act as just a manufacturer important, but so is the dispenser. That’s why we match the quality of the coffee we offer with our or a seller and not as a partner we won’t learn machines,” Rejske says. why they really need this. We listen to what “It’s only possible to keep delivering this with a good after-sales service – from the back office they say so we can understand their needs and fulfil them.” G C R and account management side to field service as well – that keeps the machines working continuously and consistently.”

He adds that, as a full system supplier, Melitta can be flexible with its payment solutions. Customers For more information, visit www.melitta-professional.com can choose to pay off the machine over a long period of time, or on a cup-by-cup basis, like they would

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AUTOMATION Schaerer

Have it your way JÖRG SCHWARTZE, CEO OF SCHAERER, EXPLAINS HOW AND WHY CERTAIN COFFEE AND MACHINE CONCEPTS ARE DEVELOPED AT SCHAERER.

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one-size-fits-all approach rarely pays off when catering to a global market.

In coffee, businesses in different regions or with unique clientele are unlikely to use a machine in the same way or benefit from the same features.

With this in mind, Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Schaerer puts its customers and their individual needs on centre stage to customise the perfect products and services for their business models.

Schaerer CEO Jörg Schwartze tells Global Coffee Report this process begins with finding out what the customer hopes to accomplish.

“Our flexibility is in high demand in this stage of the creation process as is our machine, coffee, and market expertise,” Schwartze says. “Often customers approach us in the very early planning stages and with only vague initial ideas of what they want.

“We then work with them until we can shape the concept into something which is not only possible to implement, but also promises success.”

Schaerer launched its new brand strategy of customisation under the motto “We love it your way” in 2019. The Select concept of the new Schaerer Coffee Soul embodies this best, allowing customers to choose the technical equipment and design considerations of their unique models.

Working with a wide range of customers – including cafés, hotels, restaurants, bars, bakeries, petrol stations, and convenience stores — in countries around the world, Schwartze says customisation has always been a service Schaerer has offered. However, formalising this as a key differentiator of the brand has allowed it to reorganise its processes and manufacturing to make it as efficient as possible.

“The external appearance and the graphical user interface (GUI) were the main things we often had to adjust to specific requirements, which is typically costly and time-consuming. Now, we have more freedom when configuring adjustments,” Schwartze says.

“While a large chain that buys a large number of machines can invest a lot of money for an individual solution, this is not realistic for small restaurants or hotels. The Select principle of the Schaerer Coffee Soul makes it possible to make optical adjustments to the machine and changes to the GUI as well as technical configurations independently of one another and for a low price.”

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Schaerer embraces customer customisation through its Select concept.

Altering the GUI can better equip a coffee machine to its intended users. Schwartze says the display size is usually connected to the performance class of the machine — the higher the class, the larger the touch display – but this does not always make sense.

“A coffee chain with service staff does not necessarily need a large screen which can play videos on the machine, however, it does need high performance. A small hotel, on the other hand, which offers guests self-service coffee does not need such a high level of performance, but it does need a large touch display which can also play advertisements and the like,” he says.

“Thanks to the Select principle, customers can choose between several GUI concepts.

While a screen with a complex structure allows for quick selection and adjustments to beverages in staffed areas, the self-service model leads the consumer through several intuitively-operated menus. For so-called ‘frequent users’ in office spaces, there is a middle route for making daily coffee preparation easier.”

But the Schaerer Coffee Soul Select concept

AUTOMATION Schaerer

is only one way the manufacturer embraces customisation. Schwartze says Schaerer continues to develop individualised solutions for its customers, many of which become part of its portfolio. A recent collaboration led to the launch of the Schaerer Premium Coffee Corner ‘vending machine’ concept, while features like Hot & Cold technology or automatic grinding level adjustment are optional inclusions with Select or Schaerer’s other units.

Schwartze says the ability to adapt to new trends is a benefit of Schaerer’s global operations and relationships with customers.

“Different requirements stem from the three fields of taste, technical affinity, and local guidelines. In the United States, for example, the so-called American long black coffee is in high demand, while in Europe, espresso-based specialities are more The ability to adapt to new trends is a benefit of Schaerer’s global operations popular. In Asia, on the other hand, milkand relationships with customers. based coffee beverages are the trend. So, it’s completely possible that an international coffee shop chain will want machines with completely different equipment in the US than in Europe or Asia,” Schwartze says.

“That is why we adapted the Coffee Art Plus [machine] for the needs of customers in the US market. It uses fresh beans, but the end product tastes very similar to the drip filter coffee common there.”

When it comes to technical affinity, Schwartze says even the preferences of payment solutions vary greatly depending on the region. “On the European market, card readers or even cash are still dominant, but online payment is experiencing a rise in popularity, not least due to the corona[virus] pandemic. In China, on the other hand, everything is done with a smartphone — without WeChat Pay and Ali Pay, you don’t stand a chance,” he says.

“Last but not least, local guidelines can also play a role. In Asia, for example, there are areas of application in which fully-automatic self-service machines without direct contact are required.”

To facilitate this degree of customisation, Schaerer carried out a multi-level expansion of its production facilities in Switzerland. The manufacturer took measures to make its processes easy to scale, transparent, and flexible.

“We use an extremely agile shop floor concept with mobile workspaces so that we can implement complete production lines overnight or as needed,” Schwartze says. “For example, the production line can be switched from the Coffee Soul to the Coffee Art or from timed production with much higher throughput for a major order of a model with only minor effort.

“By contrast, our degree of automation is not as high as that of other manufacturers. You will not find any robots or automated transport vehicles in our production facilities. Such investments only pay off if large quantities of the exact same product are made, but this contradicts our personalisation philosophy.”

As the coffee industry continues to evolve, Schwartze sees more trends emerging in both the industry and the technology it uses.

“When it comes to international coffee trends, large beverage portions are very popular in overseas markets. Preparing these with a consistent level of quality is a challenge and will continue to occupy us machine manufacturers in the near future,” he says. “When you’re talking about technology, the main topic is digitalisation in connection with [self-]operation or central control of entire coffee machine fleets.”

While the coronavirus pandemic has created much uncertainty around the world, in the

automatic coffee arena, Schwartze says it has made clear the demand for contact-free operation and payment.

“The aim here is to think ahead with existing solutions when it comes to intuitive operation, process reliability, and hygiene.

The latter results in new requirements for a topic decisive for operations: fully-automated cleaning,” Schwartze says.

“We are working intensively on new solutions to speed up and simplify these processes.” G C R For more information, visit www.schaerer.com Jörg Schwartze is the CEO of Schaerer.

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AUTOMATION WMF Services

WMF Services around the globe WMF PROFESSIONAL COFFEE MACHINES IS PUTTING THE CUSTOMER FIRST WITH THE ROLL-OUT OF A CONSISTENT GLOBAL SERVICE CONCEPT.

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hen purchasing a fully automatic coffee machine, a business owner must base their decision on more than just the device itself. Functionality, quality, and consistency of the machine are of course important, but so are the services the manufacturer provides.

With this in mind, Southern German fully automatic manufacturer WMF Professional Coffee Machines aims to help its customers generate success through the life cycle of their machine.

“In order to live up to our mission of being customers’ first choice, we are further developing our current position of leadership – and service has an important role to play in this respect,” says Christian Nolte, Vice President Global Service of WMF. “What sets us apart from competitors is our long-term commitment to making our customers successful with their business concepts. With 100 years of experience, we understand the needs of customers like no other.

“Our solutions are always developed with three things in mind: end customer satisfaction, the commercial success of our customer, and the smooth day-to-day operation of the coffee machines.”

As such, WMF has significantly expanded its core expertise in this area, and has established a broad portfolio of services which can be adapted to customers’ individual needs. Beyond the technical services you would expect, this includes providing advice on optimising operations, offering integrated monitoring solutions and financing options.

“When customers are looking to advance the way they operate, we are right by their side to support them,” Nolte tells Global Coffee Report.

To bring these services to life, WMF has established a global network with around 800 service employees across 11 countries and a further 200 service partners. The core of this decentralised service organisation is formed by competence centres in its headquarters in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States.

“The service data provided by our network is a key support pillar when it comes to continuous product improvement. As a result, any service call – no matter where in the world – is clearly documented and assessed in detail by the service and quality teams,” Nolte says.

This information provides WMF with valuable insight into the practical applications of its machines, which it uses in product development. Nolte says over the last two years, this has shone a spotlight on serviceability as a unique selling point of WMF. “For the next machine generation, we will therefore be focusing on an optimised service concept to reduce the amount of work for our technicians. The lower operating costs associated with this will generate clear added value for our customers,” he says.

“Our technicians are our ambassadors. And this will continue to be the case in the future.

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WMF has established a global network with around 800 service employees and 200 service partners.

Christian Nolte it the Vice President Global Service of WMF.

Nevertheless, the digital opportunities we are developing will increasingly enable us to work on machines from a central location – or even automatically. This dynamic approach will allow us to pool the advisory and service expertise our team possesses, lightening the load placed on technicians in the field.”

AUTOMATION WMF Services

Nolte believes it will enable WMF to continue providing personal support while redistributing some of the capacity of its technicians to work on improving overall service quality and new developments.

The WMF CoffeeConnect digital telemetry platform has been a huge driver of productivity and efficiency in the manufacturer’s day-to-day business.

Carrying out detailed analyses allows WMF to provide customers with high diagnostic depth of information, and almost real-time monitoring. Nolte says this will make something that was previously only possible in isolated customer cases available across the board.

“The associated improvements regarding controllability and process reliability of machines as well as proactive care and maintenance are greatly appreciated by our customers,” he says.

“This is also apparent when we look at the figures. With a connected base of around 65,000 machines worldwide, we have established the largest telemetry network in the industry by some margin – and with the size of the network growing rapidly, it is becoming the centrepiece of our modern service portfolio.”

With customer centricity top priority, WMF has focused its digital services on three areas: increasing end consumer satisfaction through high availability and consistent quality, supporting the economic success of its customers, and addressing the challenges of day-to-day business. Nolte says this last point encompasses issues such as personnel fluctuation and regulations regarding hygiene and occupational health and safety.

“To enable customers to overcome these hurdles in daily operations, we offer operating concepts, for example, which ensure a high degree of process reliability and flexibility, meaning that, ultimately, personnel and machines work hand in hand,” he says.

In the same way new technology is influencing the complexity of coffee machines, Nolte says service Digitalisation not only boosts the services WMF can offer its customers, but what their roles are developing too and manufacturers must customers can do for the end consumer. adapt. For example, WMF has shifted the training focus of personnel from the role of electrician to that of mechatronics engineer.

“When we examine the opportunities that digitalisation brings, instead of latching onto short-term trends, we focus on making sustainable improvements to the coffee business for ourselves and our customers,” Nolte says.

“When we look at the new technical aids that can help our day-to-day service operations, the main draws are remote and video support. Technologies such as augmented reality are also in use in specific customer projects and are being tested to see how they could be applied more broadly.”

Increasing digitalisation not only boosts the

services WMF can offer its customers, but what their customers can do for the end consumer.

“Our customers operate in a very fragmented market and are therefore forced to actively differentiate themselves and generate competitive advantages. This means they need to have optimum control of their processes from an economic perspective and focus on how they present themselves publicly,” Nolte says.

“Our digital solutions enable customers to optimise their business management and accounting processes. In addition, digital functions – such as those used for ordering and payment – help customers to showcase their innovative strength.”

While automation and digitalisation, alongside other new and interesting trends, will prove to be valuable tools in the future, Nolte expects service to remain at the core of the coffee industry.

When asked, how the market will look in 20 years, Nolte summarises: “The foundations of our business are built on the millions of customers across the globe who want to enjoy a cup of coffee every day.

“Just like with many other technological improvements, we are using digitalisation to further enhance this enjoyment and to make it simpler and more cost-effective. Thanks to their great innovative strength, our services will be playing an increasingly important role in the years to come.” G C R For more information, visit www.wmf-coffeemachines.com

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OPINION Kamal Bengougam

The art of punctuation EVERSYS CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER KAMAL BENGOUGAM ON THE CROSSROADS OF LIFE, THE PLIGHT OF HAPPINESS AND WHY YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD TO SCRIPT A NEW CHAPTER.

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panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“I’m a panda,” he says at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. “Panda. Large black-and-white bearlike mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

The joke turns on the ambiguity of the final sentence fragment.

The erroneous introduction of the comma gives the mistaken impression: it eats, then it shoots, and finally it leaves. It should say “eats shoots and leaves”, the panda’s diet. This joke is featured in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

by Lynee Truss.

I was speaking to Tomcat, my Australian mate (he is not an imaginary friend even with a name like this) a few months ago, at the beginning of COVID-19. We were discussing how the world’s leaders looked like rabbits caught in headlights, devoid of clarity and therefore unable to make meaningful, coherent decisions as sound decisions must pass the test of time.

It is within the context of that conversation that I mentioned to Tomcat that, in order to live fulfilling lives, we must control our own narrative, the story that we find ourselves in. And, the most powerful variable in that context is to control the punctuation of our lives, know when to question, exclaim, escape and, most importantly… when to stop.

On 7 August 2020, Pope Francis was quoted at the Vatican saying: “Being happy is not a fatality of destiny, but an achievement for those who can travel within themselves.

To be happy is to stop feeling like a victim and become your destiny’s author.”

It is often said that we are all born into someone else’s chaos, otherwise known as our parents’ lives. We then spend our formative years following paths of least resistance, riding the crest of our family’s destiny with various levels of obedience and rebellion. Obedience brings rewards and approval whilst rebellion can bring pain and rejection. However, obedience

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Kamal Bengougam is the Chief Commercial Officer of Eversys.

often leads to a life devoid of individual purpose, colour and a clear identity while rebellion can bring forth a misery of choice, a life whose geometry makes our adrenal glands work overtime.

And, in the end it all comes down to the battle between hope and fear. According to experts, we are born with two fears: that of falling and noise. All of the other neuroses are learnt behaviour, including the latest phobia – the fear of missing out, aka FOMO, so hope has a fighting chance.

Armed with this new-found wisdom, and as the age of reason downs, at different stages in people’s lives, we hit the T junction. Right, you follow and perpetuate your parents’ legacy. Left, you take a step on the wild side and begin to script your own destiny, control your own narrative.

And, at the heart of that story lies punctuation. Punctuation like great orators, is what transforms a good story into something amazing. To be able to apply those commas, brush strokes on canvas, determine the what, when, who, where and how of our lives is what genuine freedom really is.

Your life becomes a symphony, merely playing out the musical notes, the fruit of your decisions.

It is my belief that decisions have consequences and that the more good decisions we can make, the better outcomes we experience and the better lives we lead. And that the more those decisions are made by those who have your best interests at heart- i.e you, then your joy becomes exponential.

Also keep in mind that, from birth until your dying days, the story of your life will continue to be written. The only question left is by whom, that if you do not choose to pen your own narrative, then it will be written by someone else. But written it shall be.

Now for the equipping part. My suggestions are as follows: • Step 1. Imagine the narrative. Use a pencil or crayons if you are looking for colour. Why? You may edit the future parts you do not like as you progress through the story.

• Step 2. Execute the narrative. No more writing, just enjoying the journey.

• Step 3. Write and reflect on the story as it enfolds. You may use a pen at this stage as you cannot erase the past.

In our industry the same paradigm enfolds. When control is abdicated and others assume it, our prospects often appear to diminish, decrease. From the coffee farmers, the café owners and the baristas, all have the power to apply form and substance to their own canvas. People who exert control over others, aka dictators, make them believe that they are impotent, have no choices nor decisions to make. They believe their future, like a train, is on a set of solid rails on its way to a destination that has already been established, decided…by others, someone other than you.

People often ask me questions related to the future of the barista. And, while I may have an educated opinion, I do not feel apt to control that narrative as a barista I am not. We should ask those involved about the choices they would like to make to their profession, how they can envisage their role changing, evolving for the better. They should control their careers, decide whether to persevere, pause or even stop and rewrite the narrative.

A few years ago, I found myself in a role I had ceased to enjoy. I decided to speak to one of the company’s owners and he gave me advice that has stayed with me the whole of my career. He said that I had three potential choices: to stay and submit, stay and fight, or leave. A few months later I left the company and embarked on a new chapter in the story of my life. It was a painful few years as I had decided to start my own business. But I would not trade this time for any other as the lessons I learnt then currently form the foundation of the person I have become. Character like steel, may only be forged in the crucible of life.

And, you are never too old to script a new chapter for as long as you allow the wind of hope to tickle your sails, welcome imagination as a friend and allow curiosity to lead you on roads less travelled, you may prolong your tale into a rich and bright sunset.

“Remember that to be happy is not to have a sky without a storm, a road without accidents, work without fatigue, relationships without disappointments. It is not only to celebrate the successes, but to learn lessons from the failures. It is not only to feel happy with the applause, but to be happy in anonymity. For only then will you be in love with life – Pope Francis.

As for me, while I have really appreciated writing Global Coffee Report’s opinion column, I have decided to press the pause button.

This narrative has now come to an end. Full stop. G C R

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DIARY Dashboard COFFEE COFFEE AROUND AROUND THE THE GLOBE GLOBE

GLOBAL COFFEE EVENTS

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE AND CHOCOLATE EXHIBITION

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 1 – 5 DECEMBER 2021 The largest international coffee and chocolate exhibition in the Middle East will return in its seventh edition. The last edition’s visitors exceeded 98,000 within five days from around the world.

The exhibition aims to develop the local coffee and chocolate culture and introduce it to the world. In addition to coffee and chocolate, barista accessories, tableware, machines, and supplies will be showcased. www.coffeechoco-expo.com

DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY 2 5 FE B R UARY – 3 MAR C H 2 02 1 Interpack is an international packaging fair for the sectors of coffee, food, beverages, confectionery, bakery, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, non-food, and industry.

The interpack trade fair presents the entire supply chain. It provides all sectors with tailored solutions and innovative designs based on a wide variety of materials. www.interpack.com

WORLD COFFEE PRODUCERS FORUM

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL

14 – 15 J U LY 2 02 1

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

KIGALI, RWANDA The third biennial World Coffee Producers Forum will unite coffee producers, industry leaders, and economists to address issues impacting the coffee value chain. Event organisers are expecting more than 1500 attendees from 40 coffee producing countries to participate in the event.

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INTERPACK

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COFFEE EXPO 2021 9 – 11 S E PTE M B E R 2 02 1 The Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) is known throughout the Asia-Pacific as the largest and most exciting dedicated coffee event. Each year, café owners, roasters, baristas, equipment manufacturers, service providers, and more gather at this trade-oriented event to network and do business.

MICE2021 will take place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. www.internationalcoffeeexpo.com

NCA VIRTUAL CONVENTION

WORLD OF COFFEE

3 – 5 MAR C H 2 02 1

24 – 2 6 J U N E 2 02 1

UNITED STATES

ATHENS, GREECE

The National Coffee Association Annual Convention is a premier event for professionals and executives in the US coffee market.

With so many challenges facing the industry – from coffee and health to sustainability and the continued struggle of coffee farmers – collaboration, conversation, and education matter now more than ever. www.ncausa.org

Travelling to a different European city every edition, World of Coffee is an essential event for coffee professionals – drawing a loyal audience from the global specialty coffee community. Organised by the Specialty Coffee Association, 2021’s event will host hundreds of exhibitors, several World Coffee Championships, and the Best New Product and Design Lab awards. www.worldofcoffee.org

SPECIALTY COFFEE EXPO

EUVEND & COFFEENA COLOGNE, GERMANY

LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES 3 0 S E PTE M B E R – 3 O CTO B E R 2 02 1 The Specialty Coffee Expo was designed to be the coffee professional’s one stop shop for everything they need to succeed in the coffee industry. As the industry’s standard setter, the SCA has built a solid reputation over the last 30 years of providing the most up to date, qualified information and providing members the tools to succeed. The 2021 event will feature Design Lab, an interactive exhibit concept, as well as the Best New Product competition, Certified Home Brewer display and Roaster Village, highlighting some of America’s best roasters. www.coffeeexpo.org

27 – 29 OCTOBER 2022 Euvend & Coffeena is a meeting place for key players in vending machines and coffee. Euvend & Coffeena provides a unique platform for automated sales solutions, professional coffee systems, coffee, hot and cold beverages, snacks and filling products, multi-payment solutions, cups, and services.

Event organisers say the most important innovations and trends in office coffee service, unattended retail, and micro markets are presented here. www.euvend-coffeena.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 | GCR

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PRODUCTS Marketplace

CROPSTER ORDER TO ROAST Cropster Order to Roast converts coffee orders into flexible production plans.

The feature captures all incoming orders and includes direct integration to online shops like Shopify and WooCommerce. With Order to Roast, businesses can quickly create production schedules and update them if additional orders come in.

As part of an integrated roastery solution, inventory and quality management are built in, which saves time, improves consistency, and reduces admin tasks across the business.

For more information, visit www.cropster.com

CAFETTO INVERSO Cafetto Inverso is a unique cleaning formula for targeting and removing dried milk residue from a range of equipment including stainless steel milk jugs, pitchers, steam wands, and glass. It brings stained crockery or dull looking milk jugs back to life.

Inverso allows the user to quickly and easily remove stains by simply soaking utensils and crockery in a bucket of solution for just 30 minutes. Rinse with water and equipment will come out sparkling. Cafetto Inverso is now available in a measured dose sachet pack for convenience.

For more information, visit www.cafetto.com

BÜHLER ROASTMASTER RoastMaster is a superior drum roaster series from Bühler.

From small-scale up to one tonne per hour, the drum roasters of the RoastMaster series provide traditional and multistep roasting profiles to capture the full flavour potential of any blend.

For more information, visit www.buhlergroup.com/coffee

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FRANKE A300 The new A300 expands the A-line portfolio of Franke Coffee Systems With three basic models and its modular design, the A300 serves as a perfect entry into the world of professional fully automatic coffee machines.

FoamMaster – a milk system unique in this class – is optionally available and the integrated EasyClean system ensures perfect hygiene. Cup size, aroma strength, and bean selection can be programmed. Thanks to the patented heating system, different brewing temperatures can be set for up to 100 different beverages.

Numerous equipment and configuration options, such as the retractable bean container, make the A300 a compact performer for any location.

In response to hygiene demands brought about by COVID-19, Franke has developed a touchless ordering solution. By reading the QR code displayed on the coffee machine screen with a smart phone, the consumer is enabled to proceed with the beverage selection without touching the coffee machine.

For more information, visit coffee.franke.com

MAHLKÖNIG E80 SUPREME For coffee shops or individual baristas who are looking for high-quality, reproducible and accurate grinding results, Mahlkönig’s E80 Supreme is the fastest and most advanced premium espresso grinder on the market.

It offers precise dosing, very accurate and especially fast grinding for high capacity utilisation – without compromising consistency and taste. The powerful motor with active temperature management ensures a very high daily output while still ensuring consistency of all taste parameters, which is especially important in heavy-duty environments. The E80 Supreme is not only a high-performing, durable and versatile espresso grinder, but its unique steel burrs and the pioneering Disc Distance Detection (DDD) enable a different cut of particles which helps to experience pure coffee joy.

For more information, visit www.mahlkoenig.de

SCHAERER COFFEE SOUL WITH SELECT The new Schaerer Coffee Soul with Select concept serves up the ultimate customised experience, mixing and matching to fit any individual needs.

Whether internationally active coffee chain or regional vendor, the desire for individuality is increasing.

The Select concept combines technical performance and optics to meet customer requirements, providing its user ultimate flexibility to adapt the machine perfectly to their business model. Regardless of the individual configuration, customers can choose between the two models Schaerer Coffee Soul 10 with 10.4-inch display and Schaerer Coffee Soul 12 with 12.1-inch display.

The graphical user interface, design, and menu have also been completed redesigned. It not only features large beverage icons, but the processes and display can be adapted for the three most common operating situations — guest, staff, and frequent user.

The different variants take into account the specific requirements of the respective area of application, improving the user experience.

For more information, visit www.schaerer.com

N OV E M B E R /D EC E M B E R 2 0 2 0 | GCR

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LAST WORD Mintel

Retail goes VIRAL A REPORT FROM MARKET INTELLIGENCE AGENCY MINTEL SUGGESTS HOW COFFEE BRANDS CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEW TRENDS CREATED BY COVID-19.

W

hile COVID-19 has put up many roadblocks when it comes to traditional coffee service, according to a new report from Mintel, it has also opened up many new opportunities.

The US Coffee and RTD Coffee: Incl Impact of COVID-19 Report highlights the increasing role at-home coffee consumption has played in people’s lives in the United States since the pandemic began.

“The at-home coffee market will benefit more than any non-alcoholic beverage category form the short- and longterm changes brought about by COVID-19 and the recession,” Caleb Bryant, Associate Director of Food and Drink Reports at Mintel, writes in the executive summary of the report.

“The pandemic completely removed retail coffee’s foodservice competition, and shelter in-place orders forced many to work from home, reducing their need for away-fromhome coffee – a change that will likely become permanent even once the pandemic subsides.”

The report suggests the at-home coffee market in the US is set to grow by 4.9 per cent this year alone to reach US$15.6 billion, compared to a total of 3.9 per cent growth experienced between 2015 and 2019.

According to Mintel, foodservice-branded roasted and single-cup coffees will benefit most from this trend, saying a similar trend occurred during the Great Depression. Its consumer research shows that 39 per cent of Americans are willing to pay more for premium coffee at home, with coffee drinkers unable to splurge on coffee shop purchases drawn to familiar brands.

“The recession will motivate consumers to trade expensive coffee shop drinks for more affordable retail options, indicating an opportunity for brands to promote high-quality retail coffee drinks as affordable luxuries,” Bryant says.

With more affluent consumers working from or staying at home, Mintel says there are also opportunities to sell them premium blends and products, gadgets, or machines to create specialty coffee drinks within the home.

While quality is a popular selling point for Millennials, Mintel says brands should focus on functionality and originality to appeal to the young Gen Z market.

Though the report suggests Gen Z consumers are more likely to drink ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee than roasted coffee, many will have a lower income due to the pandemic and make less impulse-driven decisions. It suggests RTD coffee brands can maintain appeal to consumers spending more time at home through packaging changes, such as large multi-serve and multiunit packaging.

“With these younger consumers experiencing the sharpest rise in unemployment and already on lower incomes, they are the most price-sensitive to coffee drinks,” Bryant says.

“We’re likely to see Gen Zs reduce their coffee shop purchases, possibly dramatically depending on the severity of the recession, giving retail coffee brands a golden opportunity to connect with

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G C R | N OV E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2020

More than 440,000 social media posts mentioned dalgona coffee from March to June 2020.

this next generation of coffee lovers.”

The Dalgona coffee craze that swept through social media in March is another example of an opportunity that coffee brands could have used to connect with this market.

From 1 March to 15 June 2020, Mintel says there were more than 440,000 posts mentioning Dalgona coffee on Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. As a result, sales of instant coffee – the primary ingredient for Dalgona – are set to see a 5 per cent rise in sales growth this year.

“Dalgona coffee became a sensation, in part, because consumers were starved of ‘specialty’ coffee drinks from foodservice outlets as a result of the pandemic. People needed a way to get their coffee shop caffeine at home,” Bryant says.

“While Dalgona coffee is a fad rather than a long-term trend, the craze around the drink shows that not only do brands need to be quick off the mark to capitalise on future social media hits, but that Americans are now ready to embrace homemade ‘specialty’ coffees.” G C R

YO U N G, V E R S AT I L E , B E A U T I F U L .

Prima is the new 1-group espresso coffee machine from the Eagle One family.

It is eclectic, versatile, and created for the new generation of coffee shops, micro-roasters, and homes.

Its researched and ergonomic design, NEO engine – New Engine Optimization, maximum energy efficiency in an even more compact space brings the VICTORIA ARDUINO coffee experience worldwide. www.victoriaarduino.com/eagleoneprima Follow Victoria Arduino on