Award winning coffee roastery Bun Coffee has reached a major milestone this month with the celebration of its 10th birthday.
What began with one passionate man roasting coffee and working part time as a barista to support the business has turned into a company with 10 employees, over 135 stockists throughout Australia, 30 overseas outlets and a vibrant online store.
Roasting from its warehouse premises in the Arts & Industry Estate in Byron Bay, Bun Coffee can now be found everywhere from David Jones Food Halls and Thomas Dux stores nationwide, to The Finch Café in outback Katherine, and the iconic Nook Espresso stores on the Gold Coast.
“We also now have a distributor in Japan, with over 30 outlets introducing Bun Coffee to this growing overseas market,” says company director and master roaster David Kennedy.
David attributes his business success to not only the quality of his product but also the support he and his team give their customers.
“What I’m really proud of is the way we’ve developed and maintained a base of customers who love what we do and continue to drink Bun Coffee.
Our aim is to make sure our café customers have the training, support and ultimately the best product that keeps their customers coming back for more,” said David.
Ten years has seen some major changes in the industry and David suggests the huge growth of coffee capules for the home market was one challenge he had to meet and overcome.
“The whole basis of our business is the freshness of the coffee we roast and with pre packed capsules it’s hard to achieve that same freshness,” said David.
“We toyed with the idea of doing our own capsules, but in the end came back to our core principles of freshness and flavour and our customers have stayed with us.
“In contrast, the growth of alternative brewing methods, especially cold drip, is an industry development that has presented an opportunity to experiment and have a bit of fun. We now offer a cold drip coffee and a carbonated cold drip coffee so our customers can sample different single origin coffees and the nuances of the flavours.”
According to David, Byron Bay has been an ideal location for Bun Coffee to grow and prosper.
“It’s a great place to live, our kids love it here and the sense of community and our ability to be part of that is really rewarding.”
“We’re looking to expand further into the south east Queensland market in the coming year and the Northern Rivers is perfectly situated to achieve that.”
