LB Coffee: ‘From our Family to Yours’
Local Australian brand LB Coffee, has been recognised as the best cold drip brew in Australia for the second time in a row. The founder’s dedication, passion, and love for locally sourced coffee beans have taken venues and households by storm.
LB Coffee started over five years ago in a modest garage in suburban Brisbane. The family-driven business conceptualised the brand’s name from La Bottiglia (The Bottle) which holds the now-famous cold drip coffee.
After a few false starts under different brands and with different business partners, the belief in the process and the early decision to keep the brand within the family are now coming to fruition.
Taking a cue from beverage pioneers in the country, the father and son team of John & Anthony with his wife Katrina set their sights on success by engaging local roasters to help produce the richest and most decadent Cold Drip Coffee possible. John shared that they were introduced to cold drip coffee or cold brew in 2016 from his cousins from Canada. While the idea of working together as a team is nothing new, deciding to venture into the beverage industry was something quite challenging.
“Despite limited coffee knowledge, we sought to learn and together with a local roaster set about creating a unique Cold Drip coffee using a combination of both single-origin and micro-lot coffee beans,” Katrina said. This remains a constant ongoing learning journey that has evolved into a love and passion for the art of coffee.
Anthony discussed how it was during these early stages of brand development that they realised that they had uncovered something uniquely special with their product.
With the ‘local provence’ ideology at the heart of its company values, they followed a meticulous approach to roasting and producing a unique Cold Drip Coffee by immersing the beans in a process of distillation for over 18 hours.
While they started by producing roasted beans in the first two years, constant reviews of the roasting and brewing process led to the improved quality and consistency of their end product. The end result of the often tedious production process is a quality coffee that has a lasting taste and mouthfeel, reduced bitterness, and extended shelf stability.
LB Coffee’s unique and bestselling coffee products
Meanwhile, the star of their current line of coffee products, the LB Coffee Espresso Martini Mix, only came out after a chance meeting with local Brisbane bartenders and baristas, Anthony said.
He said the idea for an Espresso Martini Mix was discussed with local baristas and bartenders and evolved from ingredients and into testing before being finally launched into the market.
The unique coffee product, which uses vanilla bean and rock sea salt to balance the mix, incorporates an espresso shot with alcohol like vodka or a Martini. This bestselling and award-winning product recognized by Aus Weekly, Hoxton, Daily Mail, and Retail World remains a source of pride to the LB Coffee owners.
To date, the company has four exceptional products that are sold in various packaging and size. These are the LB Cold Drip Concentrate Coffee, LB ‘Crisp’ Espresso Mix (with low sugar ingredients), the LB ‘L’uccellino’ Premium Signature Coffee Beans, and the Espresso Martini (vodka) mix.
Katrina shared, “Our products are absolutely unique and separate from others in this space. The ingredients sourced for all of LB Coffee’s products are sustainably sourced, with ‘Local Provence’ remaining core to all our ingredients.”
Company values fair trade, manufacturing
Aside from developing quality products, LB Coffee also recognizes fair trade sourcing and manufacturing practices.
John described the family ideology, “We believe our footprint needs to be reduced and where we source our beans (where logistically possible) needs to be fair trade.”
Internally, he says that they also focus on improving the manufacturing process to be aligned with environment-friendly and sustainable practices.
In energy usage, they are also constantly innovating to save on water and develop best practices in waste management. LB Coffee owners also stress the importance of how they partner with importers and source raw materials as well as why they choose supply chain partners who have similar ideologies. Katrina commented ‘we seek to find ecological solutions for each step of the process and most recently have sourced environmentally-friendly packaging.
“Both bottles and packaging materials are sourced locally and made up of less than 50% recycled content. We seek to recycle what we can and ensure we reduce the impact on waste and landfills,” she stressed.
Future plans for LB Coffee
The company, among many other future plans, is also preparing to trial its first-ever recycled water Cold Drip and release post laboratory testing for consumers in time for World Water Day in March 2023. Katrina shared that, ‘LB Coffee’s approach to innovation needs to add value to customers, has to be innovative in filling a gap in the market, needs to make financial sense for a manufacturer, distributor, and the consumer has to be consistent to our values and have integrity.’
“Being family we have robust internal conversations about new opportunities and innovation ideology and this enables us to challenge each other,” John also shared. ‘With every challenge our team encounters, that demands a solution and despite being a family business, in the present environment, he said they should remain open to doing things differently.
“For example, within our roasted bean business, we have removed the need to sign contract supply agreements with cafes and restaurants for the supply of beans.” The rationale is simple…“Our guarantee is to supply a quality product that ensures the consistency and quality our customers and their consumers expect. If you don’t love it as much as we do, or find a bean of higher quality for a lower cost ~ that’s okay, we’re not going to force you to take it!” That’s our LB Coffee family guarantee in ensuring every bean we bag or every drop we bottle is done with the same quality and consistency that you would expect from a small batch roaster.
Finally, Katrina, shared that the future of LB Coffee remains with a commitment to growing the brand while addressing consumer demand and expanding distribution across all states.
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