The Buccheri Group is the market leader when it comes to coffee roasting.

Introducing the Giesen W15A – Infrared Technology at the heart of the Beaumont Lab!

The Buccheri Group’s new coffee roaster is the first Giesen to use infrared technology.  It’s the best of its kind in Australia for speciality coffee, director Santo Buccheri says proudly of the technology at the heart of Beaumont Lab, Buccheri Group’s new specialty coffee label. That’s a big statement to make in Australia’s highly sophisticated coffee marketplace, but it’s true.

Santo recently invested in a Giesen W15A. Not familiar with the Giesen? It’s a Netherlands-made, small batch roaster whose cutting edge technology uses infrared sensors to regulate coffee roasting temperature – vital for a consistent flavour time after time.

“We researched the Giesen brand, read up on the W15A in detail and decided to make the investment,” says Santo. “Now, several months later, we’re proud to be the first roastery in Australia to own one of these incredible machines.”

Santo’s focus for this new equipment is on developing the Beaumont Laboratory segment of Buccheri Group’s business.

Says Santo: “We’re extremely lucky to have such a vibrant coffee culture, especially in Melbourne, where we have high levels of sophistication, an incredible number of cafés to choose from and many independent roasters. I’m sure that new trends that get developed here will go on to impact coffee styles worldwide. Beaumont Lab is going to be a direct part of that.”

By pairing the new Giesen roaster with the latest software from Cropster, Santo has boldly moved Buccheri Group to the forefront of global coffee roasting intelligence.

“What we’re producing in Beaumont Lab is speciality coffee – premium and often experimental,” says Santo. The Giesen allows Santo and the team to push the limits of what they can do in terms of small batch roasting, constantly testing drum temperature, drum speed and airflow.

Santo: “We enjoy the challenge of inventing new speciality coffees and so far, the results have been excellent. I’m confident that the premium nature of this craft coffee will appeal to connoisseurs all over the country.”

Knowing your competition is important in any sector. “But I think this is especially so in an industry that’s growing as rapidly as ours,” says Santo.
“We keep a close eye on what our neighbours are doing, and we constantly question what we’re doing to make sure we’re ahead of the game.”

An especially valued neighbour is Five Senses Coffee. Based in Perth and with roasteries in Perth and Melbourne, Five Senses was the first company to bring speciality small batch roasting to Australia.

“I’m always impressed by the innovative team at Five Senses Coffee,” says Santo. “It was actually their Technical Services Manager, Richard Muhl, who introduced me to the Giesen W15A.”

Santo firmly believes that if technology is the engine, strong relationships are the heart of specialty roasting success. “I don’t believe you can measure success as simply roasting good coffee and selling lots of it,” he says. “Success in our eyes is also measured on the relationship we have with our customers, the people who serve our products.

“In fact, we’re interested in the whole journey, so we focus on every stage of coffee production. That starts when we make the initial green bean selection and it goes through to the roasting process, packaging design and finally, perhaps most crucially, the taste of the drink that’s delivered to the end customer.”

With the end customer’s taste experience always at the forefront of their minds, Santo and his team set up a training facility at the Buccheri Group premises in Brunswick, Victoria.

Santo: “We designed it for two reasons. Firstly, to teach our customers (café owners and their staff) about the best coffee-making methods, so our product is served perfectly every time – whether it ends up as an espresso, flat white or macchiato. Secondly, we teach them about the origin of the beans they’re serving to their own customers. In a city of coffee lovers, we’ve found increasingly that people want to know what type of beans they’re drinking and where they come from.”

This means that knowing the origin of their coffee beans is incredibly important to Santo and his team. And traceability is at the heart of what Santo is doing with Beaumont Lab.

“We purchase our beans ethically, direct from their source,” explains Santo. “Currently that source is Fazenda Sao Silvestre in the High Cerrado region of Brazil. It’s a family farm run by brothers Ismael and Eduardo Andrade, and we have a very good relationship with them.

“Fazenda Sao Silvestre beans are excellent quality: varieties of yellow icatu, yellow bourbon and tipica. We roast them both as single origin and in blends, depending on our customers’ requirements.”

It’s critical to Santo and to the Beaumont Lab ethos to understand the whole “ecosystem” of their beans, right down to the minutiae of which beans grew in which field, the weather, the family’s news and developments. “We want and need to communicate this to our customers and also their customers. Our goal is to have complete traceability in every cup of coffee served. By buying directly from the Andrade brothers, we can see for ourselves the positive impact on the local community. As a family business ourselves, this level of traceability and community is important and something we look for in all of our suppliers.”

With his visionary investment in the Giesen W15A coffee roaster and state-of-the-art Cropster technology, Santo is excited for the future. “If you pair that with our extensive customer training and the high quality of our beans, we’re confident that we’re on the right track,” says Santo.

“When I arrived in Melbourne from Italy eleven years ago, it became very clear to me that although the Australian palate differs in some ways to the Italian, the growing coffee culture was ready to embrace our very traditional coffee.

“Beaumont Lab is absolutely the jewel in our crown! We’re incredibly proud of what we’re producing and how it can help the coffee growing community too. It really is extra special. And because we’ve paired the latest technology with traditional methods, we’re confident that this product is going to be enjoyed by even the most discerning coffee drinkers.”

Says Santo, “I say the words ‘Melbournian style’, but don’t be fooled! We’re not planning to stop at Melbourne, or even Victoria. We have big plans for Beaumont Lab and we’re looking to expand it out across the whole of Australia. Initially we’re going to focus on the Northern and Eastern Australian states.”
And then …
“Well, who knows? As they say, the world is our coffee cup!”

MORE INFORMATION about Beaumont-Lab can be found at www.beaumontlab.com.au or by emailing info@buccherigroup.com.au