VICTORIA ARDUINO AUSTRALIA IS BORN

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Simonelli Group strengthens the brand’s presence in partnership with
Suntory Coffee Australia

Simonelli Group strengthens its presence in the Australian market announcing the launch of Victoria Arduino Australia. Established in partnership with Suntory Coffee, this new entity will lead representation of the Victoria Arduino brand across Australia from its flagship site in Melbourne.

The ambition behind this partnership is to enhance the Victoria Arduino popularity and prevalence across the Australian market. Australia is a trendsetting nation, leader of specialty coffee development, and a common point of interest for espresso coffee lovers in Asia and the Middle East. Making it an obvious playground for state-of-the-art equipment and leading coffee brands to be brought together.

Simonelli Group and Suntory Australia, a highly specialised coffee company who already operate as an exclusive distributor for Simonelli, marked the signing off this new and essential agreement for the Australian market, through the opening of its exciting new Victoria Arduino Experience Lab in Melbourne. An achievement which is testament to the strength of the partnership and those directly involved, as it was developed throughout the Melbourne lockdown period. ‘The Experience Lab’ promises to bring coffee equipment closer to the needs of coffee shops and be at the heart of the trends of this everchanging sector.

“During this very circumstantial moment of global, social, and technological transformation, it becomes even more important to be close to the strategic markets. It is crucial to rapidly assimilate the changes and offer solutions to baristas and specialty coffee chains based on advanced technology and our consolidated knowledge of the coffee world, gained through years and years of scientific research and collaboration with the principal coffee communities such as SCA and WBC” – states Fabio Ceccarani, CEO of Simonelli Group.

Fabio goes on to say – “This spreading of knowledge will allow every client to brew the best, personalized experience in the cup while optimizing the management costs. There is a need for a new and fresh approach to the market, and together with our historical partners, it can be achieved with the adoption of digital technologies – this will raise the significance and trust between all the stakeholders. These considerations, fully partaken with our well-known partner Suntory, a leader in the coffee industry, whom I publicly thank, have jump-started Victoria Arduino Australia.”

The launch of Victoria Arduino Australia and the new Victoria Arduino lab in Melbourne marks a significant investment in the Australian market bringing the latest global equipment technology directly to the Australian specialty coffee industry. Dean Divehall, CEO Suntory Coffee notes “together with the Simonelli Group we have created a state of art lab in Melbourne where the industry can explore the latest innovations in coffee equipment. After navigating the difficulties of launching a new business and building a new site in the midst of a Melbourne lockdown we’re excited to create a playground for the industry and a platform for the brand and innovation.”

 

DOSE: The digital platform that builds value

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Simonelli Group presents DOSE (Digital Online Service), the digital platform to support and share information with clients and partners. The goal is to connect markets and clients through advanced services that strengthen communication in order to improve performance, reduce response time, and overcome geographic discommodes – thanks to digital innovation.

Through the platform, Simonelli Group’s partners will have the possibility to connect and manage their organization access to simplify company processes. They can also connect with their clients, adding and creating value to their partnership.

Dose is a platform that involves already existing services with new instruments. It includes three services:

  • E-learning courses and technical news
  • Technical, sales, and marketing digital archives
  • Original spare parts portal

“Innovation is a creative value that drives us towards the future and that we love sharing with all our partners for a multiplied growth,” – declares Fabio Ceccarani, CEO of Simonelli Group. “For this reason, in addition to the great attention put into product innovation, we developed this novel platform to offer a series of digital services designed to be evermore close to our partners.”

The core of the services:

E-learning: the e-learning courses are dedicated to technicians and offer basic training on the Victoria Arduino coffee machines. Each class provides hydraulic and electrical data of the device along with a dedicated section for troubleshooting. To conclude the course and achieve the certification of attendance, the trainee will take a final exam.

The platform also holds a dedicated section for all Victoria Arduino machines’ technical news and exclusive communications, which are updated regularly. It is a quick and straightforward way to be in line and updated about brand optimization and innovations.

Digital Archive. Simonelli Group’s partners will have access to a comprehensive digital archive concerning their respective roles. The digital library is divided into technical, marketing, and sales areas and is an effortless way to search and instantly have available useful material for the business.

Original spare parts management. It is a dedicated platform for all our technical partners to verify product availability and purchase the part directly on the website. It is an actual online store for original Simonelli Group spare parts where the users can select the coffee machines’ designs and make the necessary orders reducing waiting queues. The online spare parts portal will be active starting on March 22nd, 2021.

How to access DOSE?

To access DOSE, you must be a Simonelli Group partner. You can ask for information directly from your area manager or by sending a request to [email protected]

Designers week. Forms and colors create pleasant locations and social spaces.

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Design is an exemplary interpretation of a transition, notably through coffee shops, the home, or the office. The spaces in which we relate with the external environment become an extraordinary reflection of ourselves. Famous international designers Giulio Cappellini and Leonardo Talarico portrayed precisely that last November during the Milano Designers Week.

Interni magazine interviewed the two designers for their journal’s last edition (read the interview here). They pointed out that the spot where one would connect with the outside, offline and online, becomes a sort of stage that reflects us from within. That is how Cappellini and Talarico created a unique installation made of particular objects to transmit a positive and colorful vision that evokes sunlight, brilliance, and creativity.

For the impressive installation of the Meeting Point at Milan Designer’s Week, Cappellini and Talarico involved some of the major players of Italian and international design, from Kvadrat, the textile company, to Icone Luce for the lighting, Cappellini, and Moroso for the furniture and the same Giulio Cappellini for the six unique color versions of the E1 Prima coffee machines.

Adapting Your Café To The “New Normal”

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Read more

How do cafés choose their coffee equipment?

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Read more
e1-prima-app

Discover the E1 Prima app

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It is the first digital coffee machine of Victoria Arduino.

Wherever you are, you can check up on its performance, view your recipes and discover those of the best baristas worldwide—all with a simple touch on a smartphone. The Victoria Arduino E1 app is THE application that improves and makes using your E1 Prima simple.

The E1 Prima app optimizes performance and the machine’s utilization. The user can set temperature and extraction time, just like programming the steam and hot water, verify the machine’s performance and set the energy-saving mode—all the functions of a professional machine at hand with a simple and intuitive app.

It becomes a digital machine with all the benefits of digital innovation. With the app, it’s possible to create recipes and define a personal espresso card that the user can share directly or through other applications such as WhatsApp. It is a fully operating sharing instrument, where the user can share their recipes under the section’ Cloud recipe’. Here, one can also set their E1 Prima with all the available recipes proposed by their preferred roaster, colleague, or those suggested by the coffee industry’s leading names such as Dale Harris, Andrè Eiermann, and many others. This innovative tool reduces distances and brings together everyone connected to the coffee community.

Download right away the Victoria Arduino E1 app on Apple store and Google Play

e1 prima app video

How technology helps with fresh coffee

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Roasted coffee needs to remain “young” to express all its aromas. However, it is also a fact that it should not be that fresh either. A fresh coffee bean is the result of the short time passed between the roasting and the consumption, this can be a problem for baristas, and of course, they would like to avoid such a situation.

To better understand what happens on the inside of a coffee bean, a brief prologue is necessary. After some time, all food produce undergoes a natural alteration process that can be faster or slower depending on the temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors. The coffee bean is a seed that undergoes maximum transformation because of a series of treatments (roasting, grinding, extraction) indispensable to change its solid composition into a liquid. It is necessary to maintain the most possible, inside the drink, all the organoleptic properties intact; that is, during the final phase, that corresponds to the moment of consumption. Who loves drinking espresso coffee would like to enjoy the sense of smell, and sight, and taste all those emotions, more or less intense, that derive from the physical and chemical characteristics of the original coffee bean.

So how should the coffee be when packaged?

The coffee should not be “old” because, with time, the roasted coffee loses all its aroma and oxidizes, releasing rancid oils and detrimental substances. But it should not be too fresh either. If the coffee was roasted right before being packaged, the espresso that comes out will not have the creamy layer on top but will be foamier. The drink will not be as delicate as it should be and will result in “piercing”. Aromatically speaking, the recent roasting will be particularly sharp to the tongue.

These adverse effects are natural in a just roasted or recently roasted coffee. The roasting process causes a chemical reaction inside the molecular structure of the coffee bean that develops a high amount of CO2, which does not eliminate the coffee properties but alters the perception. Even the cream becomes foamy because of the excess gassy substance. That is why it is essential to leave the coffee “de-gas” right after it has been roasted.

The results of the research

It is customary that the barista knows the date the roasting took place and that of the packaging because it helps understand, based on one’s experience and professionality, the different periods of de-gassing. If the process was too long and the packaging was done too long ago, the coffee lost not only the excess CO2 but also the aromatic elements. Professor Chahan Yeretzian, a worldwide expert in the coffee industry, demonstrated this principle very well. During one of his experiments at Zhaw University of Switzerland, he confronted the different results in the cup from a chemical point of view, obtained with various kinds of coffee after one month from the roasting process, to one year after the roasting process.

Filter coffee is quite different from espresso coffee. While highly fresh coffee is not a problem for the filter method as the excess CO2 quickly disperses in the air, it can be a problem with espresso, as such dispersion does not occur. The hot water working at 9 bar of pressure directly on the coffee puck, transfers all the CO2 present directly in drink, forming all the defects like the foam. If the coffee used for espresso has these characteristics, it means that it is too fresh and was not correctly de-gassed after the roasting process.

The technology to eliminate the excess CO2

Over time, other than the CO2, the coffee loses its aromatic substances. The Pre-Wetting function helps reduce excess CO2 without eliminating the aromas. This feature starts with the pre-wetting phase, which is when the coffee that didn’t reach the ideal point of de-gassing undergoes a purging process.

This innovation, operated through the machine’s display, allows the barista to determine the coffee puck’s contact time with the external environment and, consequently, the quantity of CO2 that must be purged.

Each type of coffee has an ideal cross-section between the time passed after the roasting and the maximum time after the product expiry date. Not always, the coffee is consumed during this optimal time frame, but with the Pre-Wetting function, that is presently found in the models VA388 Black Eagle and VA358 White Eagle of Victoria Arduino, the barista has more time to consume the coffee while maximizing all the organoleptic properties.

Are you ready to play? Create your Eagle One

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Follow Victoria Arduino on Instagram and Facebook; Tuesday, June 23rd, we will publish different IG stories where you can mix up and personalize virtually your Eagle One. You can choose different colors, texts, gifs, and freehand design what you like! Make a screenshot of the personalized Eagle One machine and share it in your stories tagging @victoriaarduino1905.

It’s not a contest but a fun activity to put passion and uniqueness above all and represent the personality of who will use Eagle One “#IAmOne”.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHINESE COFFEE MARKET

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China may have tea-drinking roots, yet coffee consumption is on the rise in what is, by purchasing-power-parity, the world’s largest economy.

And while the Chinese coffee industry might be young, it would be a mistake to think that it is behind Western and Australasian markets. From record-breaking auction prices to consumer-facing apps, China is transforming the idea of café culture.

Why is the Chinese Coffee Market Growing So Fast?

Coffee has long been valued in China as a status symbol. During the 1980s, it functioned as a rare, imported, and highly prized gift.

It was in the late ‘90s, when the first Chinese Starbucks store opened in Beijing, that coffee consumption slowly started to become mainstream. Coffee imports began to increase, with whole bean and ground coffee imports growing faster than soluble. Chinese consumers were looking for a way to create the café experience, rather than just a caffeine buzz.

Consumption is still relatively low compared to the US and Europe: in urban areas, consumers drink five cups of coffee per capita on average. However, this rate is increasing annually by 30%.

Second-wave chains have a strong presence. In 2019, there were 3,300 Starbucks stores across the country, with plans to double this amount over the next five years. The Chinese-owned Luckin Coffee competes heavily with Starbucks, opening 525 outlets throughout China in the first nine months after its launch. And KFC, which is China’s largest restaurant chain, serves up 100% Arabica coffee.

Third wave coffee also has a small but passionate following, while Chinese coffee farmers in Yunnan are increasingly targeting the specialty market.

The student demographic is at the forefront of the coffee-drinking movement. Consumption rates have increased faster in larger cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, as young professionals return from Western universities with a new café-visiting habit.

Today, 75% of Chinese coffee consumers are the younger middle class. They are typically affluent, career-driven millennials with higher disposable incomes to spend on premium products such as coffee.

How the Chinese Coffee Industry Influences Prices

Coffee may have become more commonplace in China compared to in the ‘80s, yet its association with high value remains.

In green coffee auctions, Chinese roasters are consistently willing to pay more per pound for exceptional lots. In the 2017 Best of Panama and Cup of Excellence auctions, 37 of the 51 lots up for sale were purchased by East Asian roasters.

And at the 2018 Best of Panama show, a Geisha from Elida Estate went for $803, which was a record-breaking price at the time. Most of these beans were purchased by Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese roasters.

Yet Klatch Coffee in the US also got 10lbs of the coffee, which they then sold at $75 a cup – something that likely could never have happened without the East Asia-led drive for exceptional, status-symbol coffees bought at record-breaking prices.

Coffee Apps and the Changing Consumer Experience

The world has turned away from cash payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet app-based transactions have been the norm in China for years.

70% of Starbucks customers in China order via their app, whilst Luckin Coffee only allows consumers to order and pay through WeChat, China’s biggest social networking application, or Luckin’s own ‘coffee wallet’ – no cash allowed.

Food and beverage delivery services are commonly used in China: in Beijing, around 1.8 million deliveries are ordered every day. Most transactions at Luckin Coffee are for pick-up and delivery, with the brand sending the customer a text once their coffee is ready.

We are only just beginning to see how COVID-19 will affect the coffee sector. Yet China is well-prepared for low-contact and efficient customer service, thanks to its early adoption of technology.

And while the Chinese specialty sector may only just be emerging, it is clear that it has immense potential to influence the international coffee industry.

Text author: Perfect Daily Grind Editorial Team
Sources:

Pictures: Designed by pressfoto / Freepik