derrilex wrote:
A) ....I know how good the cup can be using said company's beans and surely a little QA program is well justified. It cant be a matter of cost as MC pointed out, the big boys have plenty of $$ to throw around. 1 qualified company rep could sample the entire gold coast in a day or two..... B) ....The cafe business seems to be immune to these basic principles and yet they are still there..... C) ....I suspect the problem really lies with the ignorant customer. They dont know what they should be tasting or not tasting.... D) ....What does interest me is the massive variation in quality from one cafe to the next that all use the same product. Surely this should be of enormous concern to the roaster ? Consistancy is one of the golden rule of business.....
You have analysed and led us straight to some of the answers to your very valid questions, and I would like to add the following, point by point, based on my experience. a) Lets be perfectly clear on this.....professional coffee roasters have had their own QA programmes going for years. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink. The fact is, if you line up 100 food outlets with a coffee machine ("cafe") in a row, they will mostly have their own individual interpretations of what constitutes a good coffee and or how to make it. Jeff mentioned in a nice way above....many are NOT interested NOT listening to the QA reps. Coffee companies dont have lots of money to throw around especially if there is no return on the investment. b) Yes that is one of the problems, the incredible astronomic interest in all things coffee has people jumping in all over the place all the time, despite their background and expertise is in totally different industries from food outlet and cafe or coffee business. The level of expertise and knowledge lags way behind the level of interest. c) Yes, if I may say so I wrote this amongst other things, in a topic in CS last week. Its a dogs breakfast...enough food outlet proprietors and managers without the requisite coffee making knowledge, and even more consumers with same lack of knowledge of the quality end of the scale, apparently accepting what some of us will call substandard product. d) Yes absolutely it is something that occupies my thoughts if not the thoughts of many other professional coffee roasters all the time, but go back to points A, B and C above. The market as a whole (food outlet owners and consumers) needs to evolve and gain a greater level of understanding and knowledge, that wont happen overnight, but it will happen....just look at the wine industry. It took a long time but it did happen. Are you still drinking Ben Ean moselle ;D ;D ;D ? And not wishing to look like I may be part of the glass half empty crowd.....if you think its bad now, you shyould have been looking at this 5 years ago. The market has already come a long way and is continuing onwards ergo....glass half full here. These discussions are essentially one sided as in from people looking in from outside. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that and please understand the sentiments expressed in your topic are no different to those of many professional coffee roasters and suppliers that dont want to see their products destroyed but please note, it is not a very good business model to simply refuse to supply clients on the basis that they dont "qualify" to use the product in some way. As you well know dealing with clients is NOT black and white and certainly isnt easy, a good supplier certainly will do all that they can to make sure their clients are doing the right thing, and there is always the element that after the client buys something from you its gone and they will will do with it what they will, and there is a point where if you interfere too much in what the clients wants to do with your product, that the relationship breaks down and they go elsewhere anyway. Lastly, at what point in the future might coffee suppliers expect that their food outlet with a coffee machine clients and consumers will finally take some responsibility for the re-manufactured product (cup of coffee) that they produce by their own hand in their own businesses and homes, instead of trying to shift the blame to others. Do they blame the butcher when they overcook the steak? As you can see, the topic is not so black and white, and is why many companies are moving or have moved to have atleast one secondary brand in a different name and packet from their main brand, to supply to clients at the lower end of the quality scale. Any more than the above and you will have to be sworn to secrecy and sign a confidentiality statement because we are moving into "commercial in confidence" territory ;D Oh and by the way I should make clear, I am not at all disagreeing with your lack of empathy with wet coffee murderers, just balancing out with an opinion from the coffee company side of the fence. Once anyone comes up with a simple cure for all of this, please let me know first because I for one will implement immediately 😉
