5THWAVE - The Business of Coffee and Hospitality

Teams can achieve extraordinary things when human beings feel united and pull towards the same goal. But building powerful workplace team culture can be hard, especially in a café, with staff on different shifts and cafes spaced miles apart. This week we explore how three successful companies foster powerful, united cultures that help their teams and businesses thrive across geographies and even t...

While specialty coffee consumption continues to grow, it’s an unfortunate truth that for many, coffee growing does not offer a financially viable livelihood. It is also true the quality of life in these communities almost always lags behind those of coffee drinkers in western economies. This week we are exploring how three different organisations are trying to address these problems. We’ll hear fr...

Jeffrey Young speaks with Tim Wendelboe,  founder of the Oslo-based roastery that exemplifies the Nordic specialty coffee movement. In this conversation Tim discusses the business principles he used to build the iconic roastery and explores the challenges coffee growers face in building financially sustainable businesses.  Tim is a shining example of a successful business leader guided by principl...

With the many parallels that exist between chocolate and coffee, this week Jeffrey Young is joined by innovators and disruptors from the world of chocolate to get a better understanding of this industry and explore what it can teach us about coffee.    Angus Thirlwell, CEO and Co-Founder of Hotel Chocolat reveals how out his out-of-the-box thinking created an enticing customer experience that has...

Jeffrey Young speaks with David Abrahamovitch, CEO and Founder of London-based specialty coffee chain Grind . In this conversation, David talks about the necessity of investing in integrated technology systems, how to boost café profit margins and the importance of looking after the people in your business.   David is a great example of operator who has successfully used technology to scale his co...

Jeffrey Young is joined by coffee specialists from Brazil to dive into the country’s globally important and fast-changing coffee drinking market. We’ll explore what types of coffee Brazilians are drinking, the major trends on supermarket shelves, changes in the roasting market and much more. Marco Suplicy, founder of Suplicy Cafés shares how the quality of coffee Brazilian’s are drinking is changi...

Jeffrey Young speaks with Ross Quail, Sales Director South Asia for Hemro International , and learns Ross' perspectives on the long term impacts of COVID on the Australian cafe market, the future of espresso and how he helped grow St Ali , a Melbourne cafe roaster, from 100kg a week to 10 tonnes a week.  Ross' career is an extraordinary case study on what you can achieve in your coffee career when...

Jeffrey Young is joined by green coffee providers to better understand the business of green coffee. We'll explore how a coffee bean gets from a farm into our daily cup, why Brazil is able to produce coffee at a profit while other countries struggle, and how we're going to maintain customer choice given that farming isn't sustainable for many. Stephen Hurst, founder of Mercanta discusses the impac...

Jeffrey Young is joined by three highly successful coffee entrepreneurs to learn their stories and the secrets of their success. Tim Wendelboe, founder of Oslo-based roastery Tim Wendelboe , reveals how his obsession with coffee quality and his unrelenting desire to learn have taken him far away from his cosy Oslo cafe and has landed him deep in the coffee fields of Latin America.  Elaine Swift, R...

Jeffrey Young is joined by cafe chain operators and back-of-house technology providers to understand what tech building blocks you will need to scale from one, to two, to four and beyond. David Abrahamovitch, CEO of Grind , shows how he uses back-of-house technology to manage KPIs across his 11 cafes. Joe Cripps, Managing Director of Trail , shows how removing cognitive load from your team simulta...

Jeffrey Young speaks with Nick Stone, founder of US-based Bluestone Lane , and learns how he pivoted his 50 cafe stores employing 650 staff during the height of the COVID pandemic. We're releasing this full interview with Nick Stone as a bonus episode because we believe it's worth a listen. It's bursting with insights on how we can all be better people managers and decision makers.  Get in touch a...

Jeffrey Young is joined by coffee subscription, e-commerce and home appliance experts to discuss the latest coffee at-home trends and how Covid-19 has shifted the landscape.   This week's guests are Mike Lackman, CEO of Trade Coffee , Maria Colon, Vice President of Marketing and Doug Parkinson, Category Marketing Manager of De'Longhi North America and Paul Radin, CEO of Coffee Hit .   Get in touch...

Jeffrey Young speaks with business leaders to understand how Covid-19 has impacted the global hospitality sector and what long-term changes we can expect to see. This week's guests are Nicholas Stone, CEO and Founder of Bluestone Lane , Seven Miles Coffee Roasters CEO Jenny Willits, and Wilhelm Liebenberg, Co-founder of Coco Safar. Get in touch and tell us what topics you'd like to hear by visitin...