“We want to recreate Melbourne’s world-class coffee culture across Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia”
Black Bag Roasters has announced bold plans to bring Melbourne’s award-winning coffee to South East Asia.
At the launch of its $11 million production facility in Truganina, 14 miles west of Melbourne’s CBD, Chief Operating Officer Ben Romeril said the emergence of South East Asia as a coffee-loving region had enabled the company to deliver some high set sales targets for the next two years.
The Black Bag Roasters team has just returned from the region and believes that Black Bag Roasters has huge opportunities in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
“The coffee we produce using our state-of-the-art Brambati roaster is world class,” said Mr Romeril.
“Southeast Asia is in the midst of a love affair with coffee and our ability to post-blend coffee to perfectly match our customers’ palettes gives us a unique opportunity in this market.”
According to Statista, coffee consumption in the region is expected to grow by nearly 8.5 percent through 2025, and up to 85 percent of all coffee is consumed out of the home in restaurants, bars and cafes, so the market is growing rapidly.
“Melbourne produces some of the best coffee in the world. The world champion Barista is from Melbourne. We have a great opportunity to export our coffee and help create Melbourne’s world-class coffee scene around the world – starting with South East Asia.”
The Italian-made and designed 600-kilogram Brambati burner installed at the Truganina factory is equipped with a catalyst that significantly reduces the gases generated during the roasting process. At full production, it can produce up to 300 tons of coffee per week.
The new facility in Truganina gives Black Bag Roasters the ability to produce coffee 24 hours a day, seven days a week and also provides easy access to the Port of Melbourne, meaning exporting coffee to South East Asia is now easier than ever is.
Mr Romeril said Black Bag Roasters has been working hard to find ways to efficiently deliver high quality, environmentally and socially responsible products.
“We say very consciously that we produce an agricultural product. We want to continue to make sure that what we produce is essentially an organic product, we treat it as such and we have a positive impact, not a negative impact on the environment in terms of emissions, in terms of waste, in terms of water use.
“When you go to a coffee farm, you are really struck by the beauty of the place where coffee is grown. It is grown in temperate mountainous climates. They are beautiful, important, ecological areas. As a coffee roaster, you therefore feel responsible for ensuring that you take good care of this product. And that you do everything you can to deliver this product to the people in a cup with as little environmental impact as possible.
“We are proud to be a carbon neutral organisation, accredited by Climate Active. And due to the size of the burner, the efficient catalytic converter and the Eco Afterburner – which will not only reduce our average emissions – our gas consumption per kilo will also be significantly reduced. We are very ambitious about reducing the number of bags we use. We have already reduced the coffee bags. We reduced the size of our bags by 7 percent. That would normally go to a landfill. Our new factory produces less gas and less packaging. We also have some ambitious green energy plans, supported by the installation of solar panels.”