5 minute read
The future of coffee
Barista Engage Workshop / Mentor Program:
Held at The Coffee Commune in Brisbane’s Bowen Hills, Café Culture’s Barista Engage workshop aimed to educate baristas and aspiring baristas, to the possibilities of their coffee career.
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The cafe and coffee industry has advanced into a hefty $13 billion segment. However, despite this, career advancement in many hospitality positions can seem rather dim. Once a hospitality superstar progresses into a management role within a business, the question will then start to stir, “What’s next for me?”.
Hospitality workers often find themselves in a kind of rut, lost in finding the right direction to take in order to follow their passion, but also with a desire to continue to move forward with their career.
To discuss the possible career progressions for this booming industry, Café Culture introduced the first event of an annual Barista Engage Program.
Sponsored by The Alternative Dairy Co (ADC), this free one-day workshop (which was also livestreamed to those who couldn’t attend) focused on the positive career paths for baristas who want to advance in their full-time career. We asked some industry professionals to share their success stories with attendees of the workshop – and boy did they deliver! Alternative Dairy Co’s Rachel Glasbergen was fully behind this project, looking at how the industry is changing after Covid and the importance of career path opportunities in the coffee and cafe industry. The Alternative Dairy Co business is built around sustainability and longevity of business and locking in long term futures in the industry is vital to their business ethos. “This is such an amazing program for our baristas, at a time when it’s most needed too”. (Rachel Glasbergen)
The day program at The Coffee Commune in Brisbane was led by the following industry leaders:
Brendon Kesby receiving Sunbeam prize from Will Tinkler
JEFF DUTTON – ALCHEMY CORDIAL COMPANY.
Jeff is an experienced General Manager, Asia Pacific Sales Manager & National Sales Manager, used to managing people. He has a history of building brand recognition, sales and profitability across multiple countries simultaneously, combined with extensive experience in the development and achievement of budgets. TOBY SMITH – TOBY’S ESTATE.
The story of Toby’s Estate began in 1997, when coffee loving lawyer Toby Smith made a lifechanging decision, swapping legal books for coffee cups to follow his passion for his favourite brew. In 2001, Toby’s Estate was born when he opened his very first cafe, espresso school and roastery. Toby shared some of his favourite moments of industry and travels created by his involvement in coffee.
PHILLIP DI BELLA – THE COFFEE COMMUNE.
Phillip started one of the fastest growing coffee companies in Australia known as Di Bella Coffee, and has seen global success in his international start-ups. He now sits as the CEO of The Coffee Commune. Phil discussed how his success story was built around creating a vision and strong team management. SAM TAYLOR – SOUL ORIGIN.
Sam spent the 2000s and early 2010s running cafes and pursuing the craft of a barista. A National level competitor and now ASCA Latte Art Judge, Sam has spent the past 5 years sharing specialty coffee with Australia in his role as head of coffee for Australian franchise group Soul Origin. Sam, quite the achiever, had plenty to share about his ongoing journeys.
PAUL ASQUITH – JOSIE COFFEE.
With 20 years already spent committed to coffee, Paul’s passion is for digesting the endless possibilities and knowledge surrounding coffee flavour development. Paul has done the full circular, starting on the tools as a barista now years later he is back behind the machine again in building a new business with a qualitative approach to all aspects of the coffee program.
Phillip Di Bella presents at Barista Engage RAIHAAN ESAT – INTERNATIONAL COFFEE TRADERS (ICT).
Raihaan has been a part of the ICT for nine years, focusing his attention on the green bean sector of the industry. He has followed his passion for coffee by learning everything he can within the industry, from roasting to competing in the highest level of barista competitions. He now sits as the General Manager of ICT. Rai explained the art of being thankful and how to appreciate the journey of coffee.
We were looking for this workshop to not only be both educational and motivational, but also to be effective practically.
Which is why we offered our attending barista guests the opportunity to be a part of an ongoing Mentor Program. Four lucky entrants, chosen for their passion and drive for the industry, received the opportunity to utilise our speakers as coaches, capturing their experience and knowledge in the industry to direct them towards the right path to achieve their goal within the industry. These lucky baristas sprawl from Brisbane to Sydney, and go by the names of Brendan Kesby, Melinda Brown, Anastasia Chandra, and Amos Sharma.
“My goal is to be producing continuously high quality coffee and making every cup the best I can and with the highest level of efficiency possible!
Along with that I want to open my own cafe in the long term. [Since taking these sessions, my goals] have been made more clear and I have discussed and put into place strategies to help me get there”, Brendan Kesby on how the Mentor Program is going.
Barista Engage is an industry first, with the generous support of major sponsor ADC, who jumped at the chance to do a positive impact workshop. Also, a special shoutout to our other sponsor Sunbeam, who provided the exceptional lucky door prize of a Sunbeam Barista Max Coffee Machine, which was gladly received by Brendan Kesby!
“Gosh I’m certainly really happy I took the day off from the cafe for this”, Brendan laughed, proudly holding his new coffee machine.
The opportunities for our mentees could be endless. Amos, for example, received the chance to join the Golden Bean 2021 as a barista, contributing to over 1000 coffees for judging over the duration of the event. “This has been so great, I’ve had so much fun here”, he smiled, unable to mask his happiness.
Amos even had the opportunity to meet his mentors in person at the event, which really contributed to the positivity of his program. Amos is a fantastic example as to the future of the industry.
Moving forward, the Barista Engage workshop aims to shine a different light onto the barista career path and take away Covid-19’s negative industry downturn. An industry first which is certainly not to be the last!
Article by Angela Moxey
