2016 was The Year Of Consolidation

Dear Members of COBAA,
Thank you for all your support since our COBAA association incorporation in January 2015. Many leading café and food service suppliers have greatly assisted us with hosting events such as Café Talk and Food Safari Café. Our first goals have now been achieved, with full attendance at the Breakfast COBAA Café Talk sessions by state and together we can now create further discussion and networking with our Australian café industry in 2017.
Café Talk COBAA Dates
• 4th May in Brisbane
• 25th May in Adelaide
• 15th June in Perth
• 12th Sept in Sydney

Further thoughts:
Create a supplier networking Café Talk in the morning and look to hold exclusive dining experience “Food Safari” at a landmark elite café with both the local owner/head chef in the afternoon for a gourmet lunch in each city.
The Café Pulse annual Café State of the Industry Report 2015 was a highlight for COBAA Corporate members to gain much needed café industry big data specific feedback, directly from café owners and baristas.
This year in July will successfully see our third bi-annual café survey completion, and once again this collective respondent information summary will be made available to COBAA members. A special thank you to Café Culture International as our main media partner, greatly assisting in promoting the survey and collecting valued responses. More details later this year – however, if you have any significant café industry questions you may wish to include in the 2017 report survey, please contact me prior to the 1st June 2017.

We have received many café suppliers’ feedback and accolades for the State of the Café Industry report and for the Café Talk networking sessions in the past – now it’s time to further engage the café owners and baristas with more than just a survey, masterclass or trade show chat. We are currently offering FREE MEMBERSHIP to cafés to assist them into the future via knowledge/information sharing, start up assistance, product and services guides, benchmarking big data research opportunities, our COBAA Members Directory website services, EDMs and assistance at trade events.
Most important is that we commence direct in-café benefits to further improve café products, food service excellence standards and services offered by COBAA Corporate Café Suppliers. Focused and informed café suppliers and their management teams can help achieve this across Australia.

Free café owner and barista memberships will be made available this year. For new and current members – website and MailChimp access, registration to events, social media, regular EDM e-newsletters throughout 2017. This will provide a two-way interaction between vested parties, being coffee professionals, roasters and café owners.
At this time I would also like to personally thank our COBAA founding executive members Craig Driver and Tim Bonaguro, who have served the COBAA association well in the difficult start up years and will be greatly missed on the executive committee. I am also pleased to announce that Tony Macri, Mina Ali and Flinn Lambert will take their three year positions on the COBAA executive committee. We wish them all the very best for the years ahead.
Our new 2017 COBAA Executive Committee are here to serve the café industry, and we all wish you success for the year ahead.

If you require any additional information, please contact me on the details below.
Thank you.
David C Parnham

Café Owners’ & Baristas’ Association Of Australia
M. +61 423 200 206
P. +61 2 9380 5559
F. +61 2 6583 7169
A. PO Box 58 Potts Point NSW 1335