Amid a period of uncertainty for the Australian coffee industry, Nic Fry, CMO of Merlo Coffee, is on a mission to bring the café community together to create a brighter future.
The Australian coffee community are a resilient bunch. Over the past five years, they’ve faced an unrelenting series of challenges – from COVID-19 and the cost-of-living crisis to rising coffee prices and supply-and-demand issues.
It’s been a testing time for almost all businesses in the coffee supply chain, with farmers battling the effects of climate change, green-bean merchants navigating shipping crises, roasters experiencing never-seen-before prices, and cafés weighing the risk of increasing prices with conserving customers.
Queensland roaster Merlo Coffee hasn’t been immune to these obstacles. Over the past few months, the team have explored how they can continue to produce the high-quality beans the family-owned brand is known and loved for while also supporting its network of more than 1500 café partners across Australia. For Chief Marketing Officer Nic Fry, one of the answers is creating a connected coffee ecosystem based on the value of partnerships.
“We really are an industry in crisis. The price of green beans has never been higher and it’s putting a lot of pressure on the business model of many of Australia’s roasters and cafés,” says Nic.
“However, it’s at times of crisis that people must come together. There are some problems that we must solve together as an industry – whether that’s lobbying government to intervene or figuring it out by putting our heads together. There’s a huge opportunity for brands like Merlo to leverage the value of partnerships in the community.”
The busy nature of the coffee industry and the fact many Australian cafés are small businesses in which owners work on the shop floor day-to-day means finding time to connect and share ideas can be difficult. Nic says when visiting Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) in March 2025, she realised Queensland might be missing out on the strong industry communities found in Melbourne and Sydney.
“While the industry has faced these pressures over the past six months, until I attended MICE I didn’t think as an industry we were harnessing the conversations. I realised there are thriving parts of the community that are banding together to create change, but perhaps that’s what’s missing in Queensland,” she says.
“As the second largest family-owned roaster in Australia and the biggest in Queensland, I realised we have an opportunity to build something similar here. We need to talk about the value of partnerships and conversations, and do what we can to ensure everyone gets heard.”
For Nic, one of the most important factors is helping cafés to build a more resilient business model. She believes learning from the success of others is key, but finding the opportunity to share that knowledge is the challenge.
“When you’re dealing with hundreds of busy café owners, it’s impossible to find a time that works for everyone. Sure, we could create online resources, but the coffee industry is built on in-person relationships – it’s quite traditional in many ways, which makes it unique,” she says.
“I’d like to find a format that works for café owners so we can help share this knowledge. As a big roaster, we have the resources to inspire change, so I guess this is my rallying call to get anyone in the coffee industry in Queensland to reach out to us and let us know how we can help.”
The CMO plans to organise an educational lecture series that will explore business hacks for café owners. Different members of Merlo’s skilled team will share their insights, from the CFO discussing tax and payroll to technicians discussing café efficiencies.
“These lectures are as much about us sharing our knowledge as they are about us asking the café community what information will be of value to them. Perhaps if we have 100 members of the Queensland coffee community in one room, we’ll be able to share different perspectives on a collective problem and suggest some solutions,” she says.
“It’s all about opening up the conversation. At first, I think the lecture series will be aimed at Merlo customers, but we also want to invite members of the wider coffee community to take part in these valuable conversations.”
Leveraging the value and power of partnerships is a big part of Nic’s vision for a more connected coffee ecosystem in the state. Since its origins, Merlo Coffee has been deeply ingrained in its communities, supporting a huge range of local initiatives through fundraising and support over the past 30 years.
with local artist Rachel Burke to create the artwork for its Melty Beans blend. Image: Merlo.
“Merlo has long been a very generous brand and has donated to its local communities since it was established. Unlike many other coffee roasters, Merlo is still owned by two families and hasn’t been sold off to a huge international brand. There’s power in local partnerships and these non-profit relationships have led to some very long-standing and sustainable partnerships with cafés,” she says.
“We have also established partnerships with people in different industries, such as emerging artists, and that’s an opportunity for us to also help them grow. For example, we recently collaborated with Brisbane multidisciplinary artist Rachel Burke to bring our Melty Beans blend to life.”
While many coffee roasters and cafés don’t currently have big marketing budgets for billboard campaigns and television adverts, Nic believes these mutually beneficial partnerships are a great way for coffee businesses to create shared value.
“Coffee businesses don’t have spare money to throw at advertising, so these smaller, grassroots marketing campaigns can be hugely beneficial. As a small business, reach out to other small businesses or artisans in your community to see how you could work together to amplify your message and scale up opportunity,” she says.
“In the digital world, it can be hard to make your message stand out from the crowd. However, there’s an opportunity to leverage your community in the form of user-generated content and collaborating with other brands and people online. Leveraging your community is the most authentic way to grow your business.”
Sustainability is another avenue Nic believes will benefit from growing Queensland’s coffee community. After seeing the Reground spent-coffee recycling program in action in Melbourne, she’d like to see the initiative in Brisbane – or at least something similar established.
“Getting more customers to use reusable cups and more cafés to responsibly discard their waste takes a communal effort – it often doesn’t have a lot of impact if just one business makes a change,” she says.
“While we make every effort at Merlo to be as responsible as possible, there’s a lot more we could be doing. I’d love to call on the Brisbane community to find out what they’re doing to minimise their impact on the environment so we can help support that and also share the initiatives that work with the wider Queensland coffee community. Reground is a great example of the coffee sector coming together to achieve broader sustainability goals.
“The coffee industry is doing it tough at the moment, but I truly believe if we can create a more connected coffee ecosystem we can help each other thrive.”
For more information, visit merlo.com.au.
This article appears in the June 2025 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
