TRAINING & EDUCATION FEATURE
A new criteria for coffee
Through roastery for hire Criteria Coffee, multi-time Barista Champion Craig Simon is breaking down barriers to roasting your own coffee and sharing his deep knowledge with the industry.
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ith three Australian Barista Championships and almost two decades of experience in coffee under his belt, Craig Simon felt the need to share what he knew with the industry. But he couldn’t do that to his fullest abilities under the traditional wholesale coffee supply model. “I wanted to empower people to make their own product that celebrates what they think is great coffee.” Craig and his wife Andrea founded Criteria Coffee in 2018, a collaborative coffee roastery for hire and education space in Port Melbourne, where café owners and coffee professionals can learn to roast their
own coffee and build their own brands with expert assistance throughout the entire process. “Our co-roasting community are all extremely passionate about their coffee program and join for many different reasons. Some come for the immersive experience of crafting their own coffee, others move into roasting for the financial benefits of managing their own supply. We’ve also seen members join to reward and retain staff by providing extra skills and professional development well beyond the café bar,” Craig explains. “The roastery has created a wonderful community of like-minded people, all excited about coffee. We have a lot of fun supporting each other, and our
Criteria Coffee’s Sensory Skilling Workshop helps students build the knowledge they need to pass Q Grader certification.
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achievements are collectively celebrated. Everyone’s coffee quality is the best version of what they set out to achieve”. Co-roasting, like the services Criteria Coffee offers, is a growing trend in the coffee industry, which Craig says is due to people wanting to learn more about coffee. But it hasn’t always been that way. “When I started in coffee, the only way to learn to roast coffee was to get job in a roastery and positions didn’t come up often. If you were lucky enough to get a job even then, for a long time you’re just copying the Head Roaster’s production requirements. There are more people now holding classes and teaching these ideas, but roasting is such and artisanal craft or apprenticeshiptype skill you need to experience doing it to become good at it,” Craig says. “Roasting collaboratively provides an overview of the whole coffee business, beyond the practical skills of blending and roasting coffee. It involves learning the whole skillset, from coffee sourcing and planning for forward contracting to cost assessment of blends versus single origins and making sure you’re making smart business decisions.” In a coffee scene as competitive as Melbourne’s, Craig says there’s no opportunity to come out of the gate with an inferior product and learn on your customers. “It’s important that people feel comfortable and confident they’re making great coffee straight away, so we won’t let them fail and are there to guide them until they no longer need it,” Craig says. Whether it’s Craig or another skilled member of the team, Criteria Coffee always has a trained and experienced staff member onsite to help its members roast. Creating their own coffee brand has proven successful for Criteria Coffee’s members. Craig says they have all seen their sales increase significantly, even those that were already established with high volumes. “It’s a powerful feeling for the customer
