BeanScene Magazine

In 2002, Peter Mütsch, now Vice President International Sales and Service for Franke Coffee Systems, was faced with a decision that would dictate his career for the next decade.

At the time, Peter was working for Palux AG, a professional kitchen and bremer coffee machine GmbH supplier. When Franke CS acquired bremer, Peter was given a choice: to either stay in his current position of fitting out professional kitchens, or move over to the coffee machine side of the business. It was a decision he didn’t take lightly. At the end of the day, it was the versatility of coffee systems, and the emotive affect the beverage has in people’s lives, that drew him over to the coffee side.

“The stainless steel of kitchens is certainly not as emotional as coffee,” says Peter. “Coffee is an interest for so many people. It’s a booming business because people have such a strong passion which is helping to push the industry forward.”

After first directing machine sales and service in the Benelux region (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg) and then Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, Peter moved up into his current position, directing sales and service in over 70 countries around the globe.

Making the most of his initial instincts on the emotive nature of coffee, he’s helping spread the Franke CS brand the world over, and now the Asia Pacific is a key target. With Australia and New Zealand both supporting such a strong coffee culture, Franke CS is quickly moving in as a leading supplier in coffee solutions that offer a quality cup at the touch of a button. Within the Oceania region, Franke CS has gained a strong reputation for its innovation, equipment reliability and after-sales support. Customers such as McDonalds, Burger King, Nestlé, ACCOR Hotels, 7 Eleven, BHP, BNZ, Pricewaterhouse Cooper, Compass Group have all benefited from the business ethics within Franke CS.

In January this year, after a three-month period of assessments at high volumes stores in Melbourne and Sydney, Franke CS became an officially supplier of the Evolution Plus Foam Master with Hot Chocolate to Hungry Jacks.

Franke CS has made it a goal to look for ways to increase business in prospering regions. In Australasia, Peter says they made the move to establish an independent presence, deciding they needed someone on the ground to “share their passion” for coffee. Peter put in place David Downing as their Australasian Sales Manager on 1 January 2009, as well as to restructure Franke CS’s partnership capabilities and grow its dealership network. The company grew its regional presence with the appointment of Peter Viler as Oceania Technical Manager on 1 January 2011.

The decision to put David and Peter Viler in place surround the pressing market need for superior service. Gone are the days of making a machine sale and moving on, says Peter Mütsch. To stay ahead of the game, he says companies interested in serious business have to be in it for the long run and support their clients. In addition to working with their local servicing partners, Franke CS appointed a regional service manager to oversee operations in 2011.

“In selling machines, offering premium service is absolutely essential,” he says. “We can only go further on with sales if our business is sustainable.”

A recent move to ensure a sustainable presence in the region has been the diversification of their clientele. Franke CS’s initial success was founded on the company’s relationships with roaster, hotel, corporate and convenience markets. Individual international and national chains also played a key role, with Franke CS offering fast-food chains like McDonalds the ability to serve consistent, freshly-ground, high-quality coffee around the globe.

Franke CS’s success in this sphere was recently hailed in an independent Australian consumer survey last September that cited McDonalds’ McCafé as having the most satisfied customers of all the major coffee chains in the country. An Australian invention, McCafés can now be found the world over and are quickly surging ahead as one of the largest coffee chains world-wide.

“Wherever we want to be the first choice in a country, we have to guarantee a national service network,” Peter says. “We need certified and continuously trained service people and an adapting and reliable machine portfolio in order to support the individual customers requirements locally.  On top of that we need to offer a professional local presence to support and act in realtime.”

The Australian mining sector, for instance, is starting to make up a significant portion of Franke CS’s business. Discerning coffee drinkers, Peter explains, are not limited to urban areas. In offices, where well-trained baristas aren’t typically available, Franke CS machines are certainly proving their worth.

Ongoing education is one of the highest values that Franke holds, Peter explains, with their clients, partners and employees. This ideology flows down from the company’s CEO Michael Pieper, who has given its branches the opportunity to push the business and bring to life a new vision. Coffee Systems new CEO Yvo Locher, who just started in January this year, will help to foster these activities and lift Franke CS to the next level of success, Peter says. 

An initial part of growing Franke CS’s Oceania business was ensuring they had a good understanding of the market. One such understanding was the relationship between the business partner, the operator  and the consumer – a daily demanding client.

To meet those demands, Peter says that Franke CS machines provide an opportunity for operators to focus more on customer interaction, with a high quality cup available at the a push of a button.
“You need a machine to be operator friendly and intuitive – to be simple,” says Peter. “The customer wants consistency. If you as a café owner can only afford reasonable labour rates, you need a machine that can do everything for you… The better the machine is, the more simple it is, the more the operator can talk to clients and concentrate on service.”

Developments in modern espresso machines are following the same lines of development towards fully-automatic coffee machines, Peter points out, with the most recent improvements based around computer controls that limit human error to ensure consistency.

“The technology is really not that different,” he says. “Human interaction with the machines is being increasingly limited to computer controls on traditional machines. We’re seeing the technological gap getting less and less.”

“I think we’re seeing that a coffee machine has to make so much more than coffee,” Peter says.

Leading the move towards more versatility, the company released a recipe app last year, ‘Coffee Ideas By Franke’, offering over 30 recipes on-the-go and has been downloaded over 14,000 times since its release. The app can be downloaded via iTunes.

Franke CS is also leading in terms of its milk frothing technology to cater to the Australasian region’s preference for milk-based beverages. Peter points to some of his clients who go through 4000 litres of milk a month, depending on their location.

Machines that can cater to Australian tastes are a good test for the world over, Peter says, adding that on many levels Australia is leading global coffee trends. The Flat White, an Aussie original, is now being taken up Europe, and is on several coffee chain menus, including the United Kingdon giant chain Costa Coffee.

As far as what trends we may see in Australia trickle over from Europe over vice versa, Peter says that the evolution of a preference for different milk froths is one he expects will continue. In addition to continuing to improve in-cup quality, he expects that machines will have to be increasingly versatile in what they deliver.

Franke CS has invested heavily in ensuring its machines can deliver a fresh, high-quality foam. The success of Franke CS’s Spectra Foam Master and Evolution Plus Foam Master is evidence of the company’s efforts. The machine can deliver quality foam – either hot and/or cold – with virtually no difference in quality from manually foamed milk.

The Pura Fresco is another addition to the company’s innovative efforts. Designed for catering, take-away and office environments, the machine delivers barista-standard beverages, suitable for discerning Australian drinkers at the touch of a button.

These innovations follow from Peter’s belief that as much as they can promote the brand, at the end of the day it’s the quality of the cup that will dictate its success.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the story is, but there has to be a story to the coffee,” Peter says.

“Coffee is a passion, and that extra mile is required to keep that passion strong. At the end of the day, all of us in the industry have the same goal, and that is offering excellent coffee.”