This summer, Milklab is helping cafés get creative with iced drinks showcasing its range of plant-based barista milks.
As part of its founding ethos to elevate coffee experiences and support its café partners, Milklab is on a mission to inspire café owners and baristas to embrace creativity while catering to the surge in popularity of iced drinks. With coffee innovations constantly evolving, the Milklab team want to make this summer the most delicious yet with the launch of its new Summer Sensations program.
“Our goal is to enhance the café experience for consumers, and the coffee-making experience for baristas, with our range of high-performance barista milks,” says Milklab Brand Manager Melanie Ung.
To keep up to date with current market trends, the company regularly analyses coffee consumption behaviours. In recent years it has paid close attention to those of the younger generation.
“These tech savvy, content hungry consumers have different coffee consumption habits than previous generations. They choose flavour-packed and refreshing iced beverages over the standard flat white or latte. According to our research, 75 per cent of Gen Z consumers drink iced coffee every week,” says Melanie.
Taking these findings into account, this summer Milklab wants to help cafés drive sales by cashing in on trending coffee creations.
“We want to make it easier for cafés to adapt their summer menus to reflect these trends, whether that’s providing recipe inspiration or getting it off the ground,” she says.
“We’ve seen signature iced drinks crafted with trending ingredients become increasingly popular, on top of the traditional summer menu of iced coffees and iced lattes. One example is the Strawberry Matcha, which has exploded in popularity over the past few months. Its popping up in cafés all over the country, with each venue putting its own spin on it.”
Eager to inspire, the brand has developed a new iced drinks program to reignite the imagination of baristas and café owners and rejuvenate their coffee offering in time for the warmer months.
“Our Summer Sensations program is designed to help café owners rethink the way they execute their drinks menu, creating a sense of occasion in their café and attracting younger consumers. It will also give them the opportunity to upsell existing customers to higher dollar margin drinks,” says Melanie.
“When cafés sign up to the program, we’ll send them everything they need to activate their campaign including summer drink recipes developed with the team at Golden Brown Coffee, limited-edition Milklab takeaway iced coffee cups, and a social media toolkit to help promote their drinks online.”
One of the main objectives of the program is equipping café owners and baristas with the tools to be creative with plant-based milks, and giving them the opportunity to experiment with new and exciting flavour combinations.
“As part of the program, we have generated a suite of recipes that range from easy-to-create drinks using ingredients they are likely to already have behind the counter, to visually appealing recipes with innovative elements,” she says.
In its research, Milklab also explored other coffee-drinking habits. It found that milk pairing choices are still greatly influenced by growing sustainability and wellbeing concerns.
“A rising number of Australian consumers are looking to switch from regular dairy for health and environmental reasons, therefore we have continued to develop a range of milks that cater to a variety of tastes and dietary needs,” says Melanie.
In its commitment to promoting milk alternatives, the company will also host its own events throughout the summer to collaborate with the coffee community.
“We have a great calendar coming up for the next year including the return of the Milklab Barista Battle in 2025. We want to challenge all baristas across Australia to show us their latte art skills using plant milks. We’re going to run the competition online again to make it accessible for all Aussie baristas to compete,” says Melanie.
“The Barista Battle is always a highlight of our year as it leads up to Melbourne International Coffee Expo, where we get to meet and witness mastery at its finest. It’s the perfect platform to showcase Milklab performing at its best.”
Following the success of its first roasting competition in 2024, the brand will host the second edition of its popular Roaster Royale event in 2025 too. This year, wholesale roasters battled it out to win a trip to origin and a cash prize.
Roasters submit one kilogram of a signature roast developed to pair well with Milklab Oat, using green beans supplied by InterAmerican Coffee. The entries are blind-tasted by a panel of judges, before a final five are selected. Next year’s winner will be revealed at MICE2025.
“Collaboration is core to everything we do, so it’s important to us that we’re supporting the coffee industry – these events are just a small part of that,” says Melanie.
For more information, visit milklabco.com
