How a partnership helped The Bean Cartel to expand

The Bean Cartel Founder Stacy Visser reveals how an almost decade-long partnership with Roastquip has helped the specialty roaster expand and evolve.

The Bean Cartel is in a significant period of change. The Melbourne specialty roaster recently doubled the size of its premises and installed six two-tonne green bean silos to keep up with rising demand.

Following a successful rebrand that’s caught the attention of Australia’s coffee drinkers and a recent flurry of industry awards for its signature single origins and blends, The Bean Cartel has cemented itself as a prominent specialty roaster in Australia. Founder Stacy Visser says the roastery has tripled its output since it first installed a 60-kilogram IMF roaster.

“In 2017, we transitioned from contract to in-house roasting for a number of reasons,” he says.

“The first was so we could have autonomy over our product and build on the brand identity we were establishing. We also wanted to shift from the mainstream side of the coffee industry into the specialty sector. It felt like the right time to make the move, and as a bonus it made roasting more exciting for our team as they could explore new beans and origins.”

Space was also an issue for the growing business. With contract roasting, Stacy and team needed to move their beans pretty quickly after roasting and their storage facilities were filling up fast. The clear solution was to move to larger headquarters and invest in their own roasting equipment.

“The IMF RM60 roaster first caught my eye at Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) in 2016. I couldn’t believe how small the footprint of the machine was; it’s a 60-kilogram roaster but looks more like a 30-kilogram model,” he says.

This initial encounter inspired Stacy to research Italian manufacturer IMF and its Australian distributor, Roastquip. Alongside the size of the machine, it was its gas efficiency and low emissions that persuaded him to take the plunge and partner with Will Notaras at Roastquip to install the model at the Notting Hill roastery.

“The IMF RM60 is much more efficient than the roaster we worked with previously, with a [up to 47 per cent] reduction in gas usage thanks to its recycled heat technology,” he says.

“Its sustainable benefits were certainly one of the selling points. At the time, the industry was starting to take its impact on the environment more seriously; we’d just installed solar panels on our warehouse and were looking for other ways to reduce emissions.”

Another functionality that appealed to The Bean Cartel was the flexibility the roasting equipment provides. Although still a traditional drum roaster, the RM60 uses indirect hot air to heat the drum rather than a naked flame, which is designed to provide a cleaner heat to enable the coffee to retain more of its origin characteristics.

This, paired with its ability to control temperature to one-degree of accuracy for improved consistency, sealed the deal for Stacy.

“The in-direct heat allows our Head Roaster Alan Chan to have much more control over the recipes and play around with different flavours,” he says.

The IMF RM60 arrived fully assembled with the afterburner, destoner, and loader all in one compact unit. Its automatic functions mean it can be operated by a single person, with the machine able to automatically load, roast to a 12-step profile, destone, and then load the coffee into a blender if required.

When The Bean Cartel purchased the roaster, they also invested in a 220-kilogram blender, which can blend coffees in less than five minutes and saves the team hours compared to the laborious manual process.

“Having the blender also allows us to roast by origin and blend before packing,” says Stacy.

“We much prefer this method because it means we can extract the intricate flavours and nuances of each coffee. For example, we’ll roast an Ethiopian lighter than a Brazilian we’re going to blend it with. It gives us the flexibility of a smaller roaster at a much larger scale.”

Over the past year, The Bean Cartel has continued to expand its operations after securing a new warehouse facility at a prime business-park location. Pivotal to the expansion plans are six two-tonne IMF silos, which arrived in September 2024. Roastquip’s Melbourne installation team had the silos installed and running in less than five days.

“The silos significantly boost our storage and processing capacity and represent our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of coffee quality and freshness,” Stacy says.

Developed to keep the green beans at a stable temperature to preserve flavour, the silos also feature integrated load cells that are programmed to automatically weigh and load the coffee into the roaster. This automatic function was developed to reduce handling and labour costs considerably.

“We realised we had a lot of inefficiencies when it came to loading green beans and the floor space the pallets took up. Introducing the six silos has given us 12 tonnes of green bean storage overnight,” he says.

“It’s also freed up around eight to 10 hours each week of our Head Roaster’s time, which was spent loading green bean hoppers. This time can now be used to experiment with new single origins and to cup coffees.”

With the brand’s first shipment of direct-trade coffee arriving from Uganda in January, Stacy says the additional silo storage means the roastery is able to source its own container shipments more regularly. The addition also enables The Bean Cartel to expand further and take on contract roasting for other companies.

“At first, we were only going to introduce one-tonne silos, but Will convinced us
that as we grow we’d regret not opting for the larger capacity,” says Stacy.

“It was good advice as we have some big partnerships with national and franchise clients on the horizon. We’re now set up to be able to facilitate these large-scale clients.”

According to Stacy, Will’s support and advice has been invaluable and a key reason behind Roastquip and The Bean Cartel’s continued partnership.

“Will has been a fantastic conduit between us and the team at IMF in Italy. He’ll make sure any questions are answered as quickly as possible,” he says.

“He’s been in the industry since 2007 and is one of the most knowledgeable coffee professionals I know. He’s the sort of person we want to work with to continue to raise coffee standards in Australia.”

Stacy also praises the quality of the equipment and says there hasn’t been a single issue with the RM60 in the eight years The Bean Cartel has used it.

“The equipment is fantastic,” he says. “It’s very reliable and we love how efficient it is.” 

For more information, visit roastquip.com.au or imf-srl.com