10 Years, 20 Predictions
I didn’t get into coffee to stay in it…
Ten years ago, coffee was supposed to be an “in-between” job as I entered my junior year of Bible school. I just needed something that could pay the bills while I healed up after a 7-year stent in ministry. That is a story for another time.
…but 3 months in, I knew I wasn’t leaving.
A person walked into the cafe I’d never seen before. They ordered a pour-over, and we struck up a conversation while I (poorly) brewed their coffee.
After the peasantries, I asked what he did for work. Pointing at the pour-over I was brewing, he said, “I imported that coffee.” I didn’t understand what an importer’s role was but that conversation expanded my understanding of what being “in coffee” could mean. And like so many before me, I was enchanted by little beans I barely understood.
Coffee still made me feel like an outsider…
I know where I sit in the food chain being a white, hetero man in this industry, but I didn’t take to roasting, I didn’t take to competition, and I didn’t take to latte art like the folks around me. The question I asked myself was, “What will my highest contribution be to coffee?”
I was interested in making coffee roasting businesses run better, faster, and more efficiently. But when I looked around, I didn’t see other folks interested in this. The craft seemed to be what captivated folks, and while I appreciate the craft, I also wanted to make a life for myself and others in this industry. Somehow, I could read the writing on the wall that the only way to do this was to improve how coffee businesses ran. This thesis made me feel like an outsider. Like the rhythm I was beating didn’t have a place in the orchestra of coffee, and I might need to beat this drum somewhere else.
…because I wanted to make it better, faster, more efficient.
Last week, Rob Hoos invited me to chat with his book club because they are reading my book, and he asked me to share the story that led to it. As I shared about my upbringing, I realized why I didn’t connect with the things coffee folks typically connect with.
My dad was an electrician and true craftsman. Whenever I’d work with him growing up, I look for ways to do the work better, faster, and more efficiently instead of doing the work the way it had always been done. As I shared this story, it clicked. Like the trades, I wanted to understand coffee from a macro perspective so I could make coffee businesses run better, faster, and more efficiently.
The next 10 years are about maturing as an industry…
I now realize that the last 34 years of my life have been critical in my contribution to the industry and the future of coffee. I believe the next 10 years of specialty coffee will be about maturing as an industry. The days of opening a roastery and saying, “We’re specialty” and that being enough to gain market share, are over. Now, the table stakes are coffee businesses need to be fundamentally good businesses to survive and thrive.
To that end, I made 20 predictions for the next 10 years of specially coffee. I look forward to revisiting this list in 2036 on my 20th anniversary in coffee to see which predictions I’ll laugh at, which I got totally wrong, and which were spot on.
…and these are my 20 predictions for the next 10 years:
Green Coffee Prep
There will be large scale acceptance of lab yeasts to produce consistent flavors that the market has become accustomed to due to co-ferments.
Innovation in mechanical harvesting and processing will emerge and be largely adopted, reducing the number of people necessary to harvest and process coffee.
Green Coffee Buying
Negotiation and buying directly from producers will become the norm for small/midsized roasters while still using logistics partners.
Roasteries who purchase from the same producers will find new ways of collective buying and warehousing to share costs.
Storage & Production
Having a freezer to preserve the highest-scoring coffees will be normalized, and some roasters will invest in large-scale freezers to extend the life and price stability of their core coffees.
Production line equipment will become accessibly priced resulting in small/medium-sized roasters utilizing automated production lines from day one.
Roasting
Roasting machine innovation will continue to be a priority and will lead to increased consistency in roasting development.
A clear leader in operational software will emerge and eat all the other software’s lunch.
Roastery Ops
Consolidation of coffee roasting businesses will continue, resulting in “specialty coffee" becoming the norm rather than the exception.
It will become common for roasteries to hire fractional roles such as fractional CMO, CRO, COO, CFO, etc.
Roastery Sales
True home-compostable packaging (not the greenwashed “60% of the material used in a pack” workaround) will become table stakes.
Roasteries will begin to offer home roasting classes due to the accessibility of affordable home roasting machines and this will be a new sales channel.
Cafes
POS technology and processing fees will be disrupted, causing consolidation and space for new players.
Pre-batched espresso will become common to find across the US market.
End Consumers
Consumers will become more knowledgeable and sophisticated expecting transparency beyond “here’s how much we paid for green” to earn their business.
It will become normalized for home consumers to create and build their own water profile right from their phone.
Equipment
Coffee roasting machine manufacturing will consolidate in a similar way that manufacturers of espresso machines, grinders, and brewing equipment has.
Simplified espresso machines will disrupt traditional espresso machine designs.
Macro
The C Market will remain around $3 until some significant weather or geopolitical event disrupts this again.
Concierge sourcing services that function as “in house green buyers” will become normalized.
Now I’m curious…
What predictions do you have for the next 10 years in specialty coffee? I’d love to hear what you think! Connect with me below.