We believe in the enjoyment of making, drinking and experiencing the goodness of a perfect coffee. I hope the comments below help in achieving this.
We believe in the enjoyment of making, drinking and experiencing the goodness of a perfect coffee. I hope the comments below help in achieving this.
It is difficult to imagine that 5 months have passed in 2008. What have we been doing?
Three shows in the first three months kept us really busy. The Spring Fair in Birmingham is always a good place to meet up with our trade customers and collegues. This time the younger generation took control. When I say younger generation, some of them have been with us for almost 20 years but they are still in the mid to late thirties and or early forties. It was good to have Chris Olley back at the show. Chris retired after 25 years with the company and I envy him as he is starting his retirement spending half the year in Lanzarote. The younger generation decided to stay in the centre of the city so that they could be out late at night. It is hard on us who are getting on a bit. We coped!. The show was great. The musicians from the Birmingham Conservertoire kept us entertained.
The Hotel Olmpia in London was the next show and it was very soon after the Spring Fair. It happens every two years and is one of the popular shows for the catering and hotel industry. We had good fun meeting people and our Brazilian/Spanish Musical group and "Charlie Chaplin" entertained us for the 5 days.
La Dolce Vita show in London was very busy. We were helped by Rob and Alison Arms from Whittard as we were launching the Whittard's Santos and Java capsule. A great show. Even the Italians liked the Santos and Java blend. You can now buy the Whittard capsules from all Whittard shops and other Gaggia retailers, including our own shops.
We have been also busy introducing a new retail concept. You can now sit and enjoy a coffee and a pastry in some of our shops and concessions while you contemplate the ways of making coffee in your own home. The Homebase store in Milton Keynes and Cheltenham feature this concept. You can even get attractive cash back offers on purchases from our shop. The same concept has been introduced in our outlet shop in Belfast.
A new shop and service centre in Maidstone and another in Swiss Cottage are planned soon. I shall keep you informed.
Wish you all a Happy New Year and a peaceful 2008. Christmas has been a time of relative peace for me. A calm before the storm I guess. The year starts very busy for me with budget presentations and exhibitions. We prepare for the Spring Fair in early February and the Hotel Olympia show at the Excel in mid February.
I am pleased to announce the opening of the Gaggia shop in Homebase Milton Keynes. This is another of our shops where you can relax and have a coffee while you are shopping for your kitchen or anything else for your home or garden. You can also see, touch and use a wide range of Gaggia Coffee machines on show.
We introduced a number of new products for Christmas. The new Espresso range and the new Automatic machines under the Platinum range. Platinum range of automatic machines are available widely. It is early days but the initial feedback has been excellent. Automatic machines are becoming more popular in the UK and I foresee a big growth in this category in the coming year. The Platignum range consists of five models. Four of the five models have the ability to take a milk island in addition to the standard frother. The milk island allows the milk to be frothed in a patented jug from a connection underneath the machine. All you do is take the jug of milk from the milk island and pour into the cup.
The top model features a touch screen and the two models down feature a click wheel menu selector- like the ipod. We have had new technological improvements in grinding, dosage, milk frothing and coffee brewing. Touch lift tray is another new feature on two of the models. Great boys toys.
We also have introduced the one touch cappuccino machine. It is called the Gaggia Cappuccino X2. It makes one or two cups of espresso or machiato or latte or cappuccino on the touch of a button. The milk is held in a built in milk container. The most modern and sophisticated machine of its type.
Wish you all the very best.
We are pleased to announce the opening of the GAGGIA shop in Brown Thomas, Dublin. We have been associated with Brown Thomas for over 10 years and this is a further step to give a wider choice to their discerning customers.
The shop is a paradise for coffee lovers. You can enjoy a freshly made Italian coffee while you view the wide range of coffee machines on offer. Expert advise is always at hand. You can see all the machines demonstrated and taste the coffees before you select your preference. You can even blend your own particular coffee. The shop stocks the full range of Gaggia machines and a wide range of coffee and accessories.
Gaggia’s Barista competition was held at the Restaurant show recently. It was the second year the competition was organized by our Caffe Academie. It was well represented by baristas from a wide variety of restaurants - Nandos, Apostrophe, Penny Hill Park, Est Café and Pizzaria in Taunton. The competition was judged by two heavy weights in the industry – James Hoffman and Paul Meikle-Janney, two world class coffee experts.
It was keenly fought over three days and was won by Fabio from Nando’s. Sylvia Walter and Monika Krzeszewska of Apostrophe came second and third respectively.
We wanted to encourage the grass roots to improve coffees served in restaurants and we certainly did it again this year. This year we also had Anette Moldvaer, the World champion coffee taster as a special guest to give a first hand demonstration of coffee tasting. Anette shall be running the first of our coffee tasting courses in the Academie on the 24th of November in London.
The Gaggia Barista Competition was well received by the baristas, employers and coffee roasters and we certainly hope to do it again next year. I should thank all those who helped in making this year's competiton possible. A special thanks to Richard Norman, Barista trainer.
The competition was one of many activities we did this year at the restaurant show. The Gaggia cabaret on stage included a coffee themed magic show, Argentinian tango and some Brazilian music for those who chilled out at our coffee bar.
I am asked the following questions many times:
Do we support / sell fairtrade coffee?
Is your coffee fairtrade?
I wish I was able to answer these questions in one single answer. I suppose if the answer is yes then it will be simple. I shall attempt to say why it is so difficult to say yes although we sell one blend of coffee under the fairtrade kitemark in some shops :
Fairtrade is the brand name of an organisation or a kite mark given by this organisation for anyone wanting to use it on authorised ‘fairtrade’ products.
As a coffee machine manufacturer, we want to encourage good quality coffee being made using our machines. We are trying to educate people to enjoy a good coffee. It is, in some way like educating people to enjoy wine. Fairtrade does not necessarily mean fair trade. I know there are many businesses wanting to be fair in their trading. Whether it is a major supermarket, who are constantly criticised for driving down farm prices or major coffee chains who sell a coffee at £2 per cup. The fact remains that there is free market operating and it is difficult to change the ways the markets work.
I find the fairtrade brand being used by many businesses and people to show their strong belief in fair trade without realising the true nature of fair trade. Some call it ethical trading or fairly trading.
I shall devote the rest of my observations to explaining how I understand how the market works and how coffee is being marketed as fairtrade coffee and how it helps the farmer and how it helps the rest of the businesses jumping on the bandwagon. In normal market conditions the coffee grower gets about 50pence per kilo for the coffee. Coffee starts its life as a fruit. It needs husking, the seeds (coffee beans) need drying and then sold as green beans to the roaster.
In small holdings the farmer takes his fruit to the co-operatives who will handle/process the fruits and give it to the broker who takes it to the market. The market pays the market price, depending on quality and other market factors. The broker takes his commission and hands over the money to the co-ops. The co-ops will take their handling charges and give the net amount to the farmer. This is the 50p or so that the farmer gets. The fairtrade mark means that the farmer is guaranteed to get a minimum price of about 60p. It is a good way of giving something more but has its flaws. If the quality of the beans can be at a higher level, the system should be good for all. It is when you look at quality of the beans that the system falls down. Most of the better quality roasters would rather buy their coffee outside the system rather than encourage minimum prices for inferior quality coffee. They would rather pay better prices (even higher than the minimum) for better quality beans. Fairtrade is not the only way but one way of giving something more to the farmer. There are many ways to improve the farmers’ welfare and it is this where I do not see eye to eye with the fairtrade brand.
How do we then try to improve the welfare of the farmer in the third world who is getting too little for his produce. I shall give an example of how much of the money one pays at a coffee bar goes to the farmer. Say, you pay £1 for an espresso. I have taken espresso as an example as it is pure coffee and water in a cup. You can make 120 cups of espresso from a kilo of coffee. This means that we pay £120 per kilo of coffee at the coffee bar level. Coffee bars could buy beans at £12 - £18 per kilo. This means that the value added to coffee in a coffee bar is over £100 per kilo. It is easily justifiable if you take into account the cost of rent, labour, machine cost, cups, sugar etc. Yes, the coffee bar has to make a profit but I do not think that it is excessive.
Example:
Coffee shop serving, 300 coffees per day
Coffee costs say £40
Labour costs £60
Rent £150
Other costs £20
Total Cost £270
Cost per cup £0.90 therefore profit £0.10
The next analysis is the purchase price of coffee by the coffee bar. £12 to £18 seems very expensive for a kilo of coffee when the farmer has received only 50pence. A small roaster buys green beans from an importer which could cost around £2 per kilo. The cost of roasting in the UK depends on the size of the batch you are roasting. It can vary from £2.0 to £10 depending on labour and overheads. The smaller the batch the more expensive it becomes. A small roaster can only survive if he can get £12 to £18 per kilo. He is able to get this price by selling it fresh and adding value to it by servicing his small customer base.
If this is the reality, how does a farmer get better value for his commodity. One way of getting better value is to add value to his bean in the country of origin or find markets himself rather than just handing his beans to the co-op. I met a farmer from Kenya recently who has 30 acres of coffee plantation. He is trying to find a buyer for his produce in the UK. This can be expensive for the farmer as he has to know the route to market and has to invest in travel, marketing and transport. It may be better for him to consider adding value to his product before bringing it to market. I know that it works with tea. 40 years ago most of the teas from Sri Lanka were brought into the UK and blended here. The plantations received a low price. Now you can get the most expensive tins of leaf tea directly from Sri Lanka. The packaging is world class, the quality is the best and the way to market is direct. The benefit to the farmer will be – not 10p per kilo but hundred times more. Furthermore, If we can help and encourage the farmer produce better quality coffee, as some of the roasters are trying to do, it will improve the price the farmer gets.
What then is fair trade? Pay 10p per kilo or help/encourage the farmer to improve his quality and add value to his produce.
We are organising our second barista competition for users of Espresso machines in restaurants. This will be held at the Restaurant Show, Earl's Court from the 8th -10th of October. The first competition was held last year and was well received. This is a competition to encourage restaurants to serve better coffee at the end of a meal and also to encourage coffee making generally. Gaggia's Caffe Academie has been involved in training and encouraging baristi for a number of years. The quality of coffee served is continually improving but there is a lot more to be done. The UK and the World competitions have given a high profile for coffee making and I have had the priviledge to be associated with two UK champions -Simon Robertson and James Hoffman. James started his coffee career in our Academie and has gone on to become the world champion and is probably one of the most knowledgeable coffee experts in the world today.
James Hoffman has kindly agreed to judge this year's competition along with Paul Meikle-Janney who is another world renowned coffee expert and trainer.
Visit our web site for details of the competition http://www.gaggia.uk.com
It was a pleasure to hear that James Hoffman had won the World Barista Championship in Tokyo. Congratulations to James.
James deserves every bit of his success. I am proud to to have been part of his entry into the coffee world when James joined us four or so years ago to manage our concession in Oxford Street. He was one of our pioneers in our Gaggia Caffe Academie and has always kept in touch even after he left to join the competition. I recently had lunch with James and we caught up on old times. He always asked searching questions and spent hours reasearching and practicing. I am very honoured to be associated with James and look forward to seeing his successes in the future. I wish him all the very best.
James also came top in the 'best signature drink' category for his espresso with biscotti foam, milk chocolate and a tobacco infused cream. A great substitute perhaps for those smokers who want to stay indoors but still get the tobacco fix!
'I wanted to use ingredients that have an association with copious pleasure,' he explained after his win.
I have pleasure in anouncing the establishment of another Gaggia caffe bar bar within a department store. This time it is in Perth, in Scotland. McEwans of Perth is the largest department store in Perth and has been there for a very long time. I am pleased to be associated with McEwans. The initial reaction is very good and it is certainly increasing footfall within the home department. More importantly, the coffee served is at its best and I am sure more and more people will drop in there to enjoy the coffee while viewing the full range of Gaggia coffee machines and accessories. It is a great place for a coffee lover (having said that, the first machine we sold there was our Gaggia Gelatiera ice cream machine).
The first of this type of Gaggia caffe bar was establised in London last year, at Pearsons in Enfield. Here, you can sit and enjoy a great coffee and croissoints within the home department. The coffee is of the highest standard and is very reasonably priced. You can also buy the coffee ingredients, accessories and machines, from a wide selection of traditional, bean to cup and capsule systems. You can also get some good advise from the well trained barista staff.
Gaggia also has concessions in House of Fraser (Oxford Street, Norwich and Bluewater) and our own shops in West Yorkshire, Belfast, Braintree (Essex) and Street (Somerset) and Northampton. We also have several shop fits within Cook shops and Department stores all over the country.
For a full list visit our web site. http://www.gaggia.uk.com
I was reading the March 2007 British Philatelic Bulletin which was passed on to me because it had an interesting article by Rosemary Bennett on the subject : Coffee houses and correspondence. A very interesting and illuminating article about coffee houses in the 17th century. The first UK Coffee house according to Rosemary Bennett opened in Oxford in 1650. I did not realise that coffee houses were used in those days, to even distribute post - a local post office! At a time when we are told that village post offices are being closed, as they are no longer viable, I wonder whether it is time that we go back to using coffee houses as post offices in the future.
I went into Starbucks yesterday and was talked into by a friendly sales staff to get the new Starbucks card. It seems a great idea. You just top up the card at any Starbucks shop and then you can use the card at any Starbucks shop instead of cash. They even gave a free coffee to induce me to get this card. I am not a regular visitor to Starbucks but I now have to visit it, just to use the balance on my card.
May be, Starbucks should take the lead in introducing post office services in all their shops.
I am pleased to announce that Gaggia Baby Class won Gold in the Industry Award 2007 organised by the DIY week, Housewares Magazine and Hardware and Garden Review. The award was for products first launched in 2006 in the small electricals category. Entries were judged by a panel of buyers representing a cross-section of retailers and wholesalers. The winners were announced at the 2007 Industry Awards Lunch at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, attended by 400 guests and hosted by newsreader Sian Williams. This is the 3rd time in the last 5 years Gaggia has won an award in this category. Obviously, we are very pleased and honoured by this award.
Deco is Gaggia’s newest machine for the professional sector. This will replace the D90 which has been the image of Gaggia for over 30 years. It therefore had to be something extra ordinary.
The technical specifications are superior and the design is exceptional. Stainless steel boiler, autonomous heating system for each brewing unit, digital programmable display, back illumination, two programmable hot water buttons, mixture of water for tea are some of the features of the new DECO.
Gaggia moves to a modern factory
Gaggia is moving the production from its old factory in Milan to its more modern plant in Gaggio Montano near Bologna. The group (Saeco International Group) owns five plants in Italy and one in Romania. It is the largest producer of coffee machines in the world. With the expansion of Gaggia’s production - both domestic and professional coffee machines – it has become necessary to consolidate all the production in Gaggio Montano.
All automatic machines and professional machines will be made in the Gaggio Montano factory. The Milan base will be used only for marketing, sales and after sales administration. Some of the domestic manual machines will be produced in its factory in Romania.
The changes give us major benefits in terms of capacity and costs. We are therefore very pleased with the changes.
Last week I took time off to go on one of our Caffe Academie courses -The Comparative cupping course. This course was developed by Jon Skinner and was conducted at the Master roast roastery in Peterborough. A great place to have the course, as you have the right facilities at hand and the right people behind the scenes. Stuart who is the coffee taster and master roaster, I realised, was a great barista too. He made me a great coffee before we started.
The course was attended by four of our baristas and myself. Although all of us have been in the coffee business for some time, we soon realised that this course was going to give us a better knowledge and understanding of the tastes and origins of coffee.
We were able to learn the theory of the senses and then put it into practice. I was very surprised that all of us, by the end of the day, in a blind test, were able to identify the different tastes and fragrances of a variety of coffees from Gautemala, Kenya, Java and India.
I am now going to give particular attention to the tastes of my coffees, hopefully to identify the different flavours and origins. A great course for any coffee enthusiast. The course was enriched by the friendly atmosphere, the detailed factory tour and as always the professional way Jon delivers his courses.
The phone system has been changed but software changes are not completed. This means that we can receive calls now but if you leave a message (that is, if you can) we may not be able to pick it up. Please email us if you cannot speak to someone. I was sitting with the help line staff the whole of today just to make sure we do our best to answer as many calls as we can and I think we did quite well.
I must say it was good to be on the help line and talk to people and resolve problems or give advise. I should do this more often!. I shall refrain from this until my throat infection is cured.
We are changing our telephone system this week and you may experience difficulties in getting through to our office. Please email us on info@gaggia.uk.com if you have any problems. Hopefully the telephones should be back to normal by Monday the 5th of March.
If you need to contact us urgently please email me on beadle@gaggia.uk.com
I travelled almost the entire week last week. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland and almost Wales. Although it was a tiring week I enjoyed meeting the people. It was good to hear that all the new products have been well received. It was also nice to know that my blog is being found useful. Ann, one my shop managers said that I should keep it up and make it more frequent. So, here I am.
I wish I could take one person from our business each time I go out on these field trips. Our staff, mainly our help line staff, are talking to lots of our customers but do not really intereact with our baristas in the retail shops. It might help them to exchange ideas so that they can help the customer better. Recently we invited our shop managers to the Spring Fair in Birmingham to give them an idea of what we do at a trade show. This was found to be useful by all of them. They also saw all the new products already introduced and the products coming out later on this year. It was good to see you there. Any comments welcome.
Gaggia launches the latest professional machine in Hamburg in March. We have been testing the machine in the UK, in a busy enviroment, since December and we are delighted with the performance. We should have the new machines in the UK and Ireland by end of March/early April. I am sure it is going to take the pride of place in many restaurants and bars soon. Can't wait to launch it! You will see why when you see the design and technology.
I cannot believe that it is the second month of the year. Christmas feels like yesterday. I am sure everyone will share my view that time passes quickly when you are busy. I have just come back after the Annual Spring Fair in Birmingham. It was nice to be there and see all the familiar faces. The show for us was an opportunity to show all our new products to trade customers. With more than 50% of our range being new products introduced in the last three months, it was very exciting. The products were very well received by all. We also enjoyed the music from the students of the Birmingham Conservatoire who performed for us everyday. Jazz, Guitar and Flute, String Quartet - all went down very well.
We look forward to a great year and I wish all our customers, suppliers and colleagues a great year.
It is Christmas time again. It is a time of reflection, a time of giving thanks to family, friends, customers and colleagues for all the support received during the year. As a company we are thankful to our customers for being loyal to our brand and continuing to purchase our products in large numbers. This also means that we fully commit ourselves to looking after our customers, suppliers and service providers in the coming year.
Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful 2007.
