The future is automated, according to Barista Equip. Founder Brett Bolwell recommends the products he thinks best benefit cafés big and small.
According to Barista Equip Founder Brett Bolwell, the Australian café scene is in a significant period of transition. No matter the size or scale of the business, he believes the next few years will see key shifts in technology and workflow in response to industry issues such as staffing and rising prices.
“Automation is becoming an increasingly critical component of the everyday running of a café,” he says.
“We’re seeing a technology transition from the traditional espresso setup to a semi or fully automatic format. Whether that’s a café owner supplementing their manual espresso machine with tools such as automatic milk steamers and grind-by-weight grinders, or a quickly expanding startup rolling out super automatic machines to produce coffee at the touch of a button, there are automated products to suit every type of business.”
As specialists in automatic coffee technology, Brett and the team at Barista Equip help café owners find the solutions to make their operations run as smoothly as possible. With a wide range of products from some of the world’s most innovative manufacturers, they work with each client to create a workflow tailored to their business.
“Barista Equip is the only company in Australia that can provide the entire solution; we don’t just supply intelligent machinery but also the latest telemetry systems,” says Brett.
For café owners with a traditional setup looking to modernise their bar, Brett recommends a few key pieces of equipment. The first is the Perfect Moose automatic milk steamer.
“The Perfect Moose takes over the whole process of the barista manually steaming the milk. The user simply places the jug in the machine and it creates perfectly textured milk at exactly the right temperature for the desired drink, whether it be a flat white, latte, or cappuccino,” he says.
“If you’re running a busy operation and usually have two baristas at the machine, one running shots and the other milk, by adding one or two Perfect Mooses you can speed up workflow considerably and ensure the result is consistent.”
The addition of a grind-by-weight grinder is another product Brett believes is an essential tool for high-volume cafés. He highlights the new Flow Grinder by Fiorenzato, which is integrated with Flow telemetry technology.
“Most baristas don’t have time to mess around weighing shots, so Fiorenzato’s self-adjusting grinder helps the user keep their recipes consistent throughout the day,” he says.
“The addition of the Flow telemetry system ensures that, as the shot profiles change due to climatic conditions, age of beans, and all the other things that affect the quality of the espresso, the grinder responds to the data harvested by the Flow system to adjust the grind size and keep the coffee quality high. A self-adjusting grinder takes a step out of barista’s workflow so they can focus on the customer and ensure every coffee served is of the best possible quality.”
Many of the cafés Brett and the Barista Equip team work with are established, however, they also help new startups get off the ground. For ambitious owners with plans to roll out a chain of venues in a short space of time, Brett recommends exploring the benefits of super automated espresso machines.
“If you’re starting from scratch and want to scale things quickly, I would go with a super automatic,” he says.
“The beauty of these machines is that you can run multiple shots at the same time at the touch of a button, with alternative and dairy milks running simultaneously and delivered direct into the jugs.”
One well-known brand that’s embracing automation is McCafé. Barista Equip has recently started working with the chain to implement the Flow telemetry system at some of its venues across Australia.
“We already had three products in McDonald’s, so we approached them to trial the Flow system to see if it could improve the quality of their coffee,” he says.
After four to six weeks of trials, Brett says there was still room for improvement, and suggested using the Flow system data to introduce some changes.
“If you can’t measure it, it’s guess work, so I think the data from telemetry technology is crucial for any type of café,” he says.
“Australia has been slow to adopt automated and telemetry technology compared to Europe and North America, but Barista Equip is here to help café owners make the transition.”
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This article appears in the August/September 2024 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.