Press Release
DATE: 02 June 2015
FROM: Sean Edwards
Managing Director, Café Culture International
Please let me be the first to introduce you to this exciting event taking place in North America.
We are very proud to announce The Compak Golden Bean Roasters competition will take place from the 16th to 19th of September this year in Portland Oregon.
This event has been running successfully now for ten years in Australia and has been one of the key elements in the growth of the Australian coffee industry by way of rewarding the coffee roasters, the vital person in the chain for all coffee businesses.
The coffee and café industry has traditionally focused heavily on the baristas, which has been great in keeping the quality of service of this beverage in the frontline of a café business. However ten years ago, after studying the growth cycles of the wine industry the team at Café Culture International decided that it was time to put our coffee roasting masters on a pedestal amongst their peers.
The event has been tried and tested in the Australian market place and has nearly 60% support from all of the coffee roasting businesses in the country. The event has over 1200 entries each year and is now the largest roasters competition using this judging format, in the world.
Coffee companies submit their entries on a predetermined date and the coffees are judged through a blind tasting format, in over 10 different categories and brew methods. The coffees are judged by roasters that attend the event to participate and enjoy the three-day competition and conference.
The Compak Golden Bean invites roasters to not only send in their entries but also to participate in the seminars and fun sponsored evenings. This creates a valuable opportunity for roasters to network with each other and form great alliances within the industry.
Speakers will include two time Australian Golden Bean winner and Head Judge Anne Cooper. There will be a marketing presentation from the coffee king of Australia, Mr Phillip Di Bella on how he built a company from scratch to a 50 million dollar business in ten years. Matt Milletto from Bellisimo Coffee will also give a review of the North American market and deliver the first ever Pulse Data report on the North American coffee industry. Other seminars will include keynote speakers from North America covering water technology, green bean procurement and fire safety practices.
This year’s event in Portland will be co run with Bruce and Matt Milletto from Bellisimo Coffee, the force behind The American Barista School, long term educators of coffee businesses in North America. We have been researching this project for over three years and have made many visits to the USA and Canada talking with roasters and aligning friendships and business relations before we set the dates.
We are looking forward to starting our roaster marketing in June and personally visiting the hundreds of roasters in North America so we can answer question directly about the event and help support this great industry that is experiencing the same changes that Australian market has gone through in recent years. The Compak Golden Bean Roasters competition is about education first then all the other great benefits will follow, making this a smarter business model.
We are very conscious of the fact that each country has slight differences in their coffee businesses so we will tailor the event for the North American market to suit. We are very excited about the size of the market and how the industry is already strong with their associations and business acumen. We know from our own experience that the Golden Bean will unite an industry and grow with the marketplace. The event has some major sponsors line up that will assist in subsidizing many of the cost within the event, making it realistically priced for roasters to attend.
Please feel free to contact myself in regards to this exciting event or look at the past press releases from the past 10 years of Golden Bean Australia.
Sean Edwards
Managing Director
Café Culture International