Tim Briggs reveals how Loring helped him scale up production at his New South Wales roastery while decreasing gas consumption and improving batch consistency.
According to Underground Coffee Roasters Founder Tim Briggs, those who join the coffee industry in Australia tend to be drawn to innovation.
“Australians have no constraints of tradition and are always willing to experiment,” he says.
It was this spirit of innovation that inspired him to set up his roastery in Penrith, New South Wales. As his burgeoning business moved from hobby to legitimate operation, Tim needed a roaster that could handle Underground’s growing capacity.
Already well underway towards purchasing a larger roaster that would meet the roastery’s production needs, Tim quickly realised the model he was looking at had limitations in achieving the profiles he was after in Underground’s single-origin coffees. He needed a solution that offered both increased capacity and a high-level of consistency.
After hitting a snag during financing, Briggs opted to roast at a local co-op using a Loring S7 and S70.
“The first thing that strikes you with a Loring is its design and quality workmanship. It’s a showpiece in the roastery,” he says.
Working closely with Loring showed Briggs and his staff that they could manage their broadening catalogue of roast profiles while increasing their productivity to meet local demand. They found consistency more difficult on their older system due to ambient factors such as temperature and humidity; using a Loring eliminated most of those discrepancies and produced better batch consistency.
Briggs reached out to his local representative and moved onto a Loring roaster. He says every concern he had – proper support, consistency, capacity, fuel consumption, and more – met its match with the new machine.
“Communication throughout the purchasing process and installation was outstanding,” says Tim.
Underground’s quality control staff have found the Loring produces far more consistency across batches. Though they didn’t make their final purchasing decision based on projected fuel savings, they found the reduced gas consumption helped as costs soared.
From an operational view, Briggs says the Loring is more powerful than his previous roaster and helps the Underground team achieve profiles they’re very happy with.
“Our coffee is cleaner in the cup with the Loring,” he says.
For more information, visit loring.com
