BeanScene Magazine

Tongue-in-cheek, Prodotti d’Italia’s Rupert Kurghan describes his most recent business venture as “international trading at its best”.

As the sole agents for ACF  Cups in Australasia, and the most active global middleman for FAC, the Italian manufacturers of these sought-after cups, Rupert has received inquiries from all over the world, from the UK to Taiwan. It was an enquiry from China, however, that made Rupert laugh. For some years Chinese manufacturers have been hawking imitations of ACF Cups, so to receive an inquiry from this particular nation was a small victory for Rupert.

“It just shows that everything goes full circle,” says Rupert. “China has been shipping out these knock-offs, but now we’ve managed to ship the genuine article back into China.”

It would seem the Chinese are learning what the coffee aficionados have knows for years – there’s nothing like a real ACF Cup.

Centuries ago, the cups were originally made from deposits of high-quality white clay in Liguria, Italy. Rupert explains Ligurian merchants brought back the porcelain technology they had learned from Arab countries, who had in turn picked it up from their trade with China.

While the Ligurian clay deposits have long been exhausted, the factory is still located in the small northern Italian region of Liguria. The cups are the result of nearly 400 years of Italian experimentation and adaptation, and the resulting crafted ceramics are as functional as they are aesthetically pleasing.

“You’re dealing with a product that’s designed to present the consumer with a perfect cup of coffee. The shape helps to produce a perfect crema, and the high quality china keeps the coffee hot for longer,” explains Rupert. While he notes there is no end to cheap copies available, there’s a good reason why authentic ACF Cups have continued to prove a favourite among top baristas and café owners everywhere.

Rupert explains it is not so easy to replicate exactly the exterior design of the cups, and to match the quality raw materials, as this would push up the price of the copies.

He points to an exercise one of their cafés completed where they calculated the cost of the cups per coffee sold. Because the cups lasted for so long, the price came close to one hundredth of a cent.

“There is no doubt cafés could use cheaper cups and that would be less expensive at the outset, but the cheaper versions won’t stand up to the thrashing these cups receive at a café,” he says. “This is another reason why ACF have remained so popular, and have been able to withstand the competition of cheaper cups, those cheaper versions won’t deliver the end result that the customer wants.”
Rupert’s own introduction to ACF Cups came about in the early 1990s. While he started off trading “the usual hippy background stuff” from southeast Asian countries, as well as India and Afghanistan, he later moved on to import an item that fascinated him far more: coffee. Deciding at the time that coffee roasted in Italy was the best on the planet, he started importing two Italian coffee brands, and this led to his introduction to FAC.

The introduction was a fortunate one. As the New Zealand coffee scene has thrived over the last few years, the number of domestic roasters has risen, and there is limited growth potential in sales of imported roasted coffee.

“It would require a lot of ongoing energy to convince cafés to buy imported coffee,” he says.

Whereas for high quality coffee cups, New Zealand has witnessed an opposite shift. Up to the late 1980s, the New Zealand Government had heavily protected its domestic businesses, and crockery manufacturer Crown Lynn had benefitted strongly from that protection. However, as import licensing was phased out, Rupert says protected manufacturers such as Crown Lynn proved unable to adapt and had to close down, leaving virtually no domestic ceramics industry in New Zealand. This created ample importing opportunities.

Today, Rupert says that ACF Cups have become well entrenched in the New Zealand coffee scene, and he’s now hoping to achieve the same position in Australia, where the cups already have a strong reputation among roasters and baristas.

“Our task”, Rupert says, “is to ensure that the cups are readily accessible throughout Australia.”

At home coffee lovers may be asking if “readily accessible” will apply to retail as well – and here Rupert brings good news. Already, some New Zealand shops are carrying the cups, with plans to offer the cups to retailers in Australia.

Prodotti d’Italia took the initiative to offer the cups in multi-coloured packages of six with the retail sector in mind. To do this, they had to order the production minimum of 2000 cups per colour, so 12,000 in total to make up the 6-mix colour packs.

“We’ve made the decision to commit ourselves to that level of production. And from our regional distributors we’ve had a lot of positive feedback”.

The company has expanded their offerings to include a variety of shapes and colours. The select handful of Australian roasters who used to import ACF cups before Prodotti d’Italia secured the sole agency will continue to have distribution rights through Prodotti d’Italia. On top of these, Rupert is hoping to expand the number of distributors to at most a dozen in total, throughout Australia, to give a wide geographic spread and easy access to the cups for all users.

“Distributors will be able to sell wherever they want to, however we want to ensure that we have a good geographic spread so that end-users can physically visit their nearest distributor,” he says. “The idea is to build a distribution network somewhat like a car dealership, so that eventually any customer at any level can easily source a supplier.”

This a similar vision to what Rupert has for international distribution, as he has recently negotiated the rights to distribute the cups planet-wide. He’s already working on several potential distributors in the UK and in Europe, and he has already sent a few shipments to a distributor in Taiwan.

“We’ve developed a role as the middleman between the factory and the distributors,” he says. “Because the Italian manufacturers are geared up to manufacture only large orders, whereas we are willing to supply by the carton if required.”

Positioning a New Zealand business as the global distributor for an Italian product may not initially seem like the most obvious business decision, but in today’s digital environment Rupert notes geographic location has very little relevance. In addition to a good internet connection, Rupert says that running a successful business from New Zealand is all about attitude.

“You just need to go into it with a ‘can do’ sort of optimism,” he says. “As a trading company, we’re just trying to realise the opportunities the internet offers. In terms of geographical remoteness, when someone emails you with enquiries and orders, it doesn’t matter to them where you are, as long as they get the product and the support they need.

“One of the future challenges for our business will be to uphold, and build upon, the reputation of ACF Cups. We see ourselves as standing in for the factory. We want to meet the demands of the customers, and to act as a conduit. Above all, we aim to make ACF cups available to any marketplace on the planet.”