Interview with Robert of DC Specialty Coffee

Hi, my name is Robert Stewart. I'm the general manager at DC coffee. We’re currently in the Conga foods headquarters in Coburg.

Thanks for having me today! I’m curious, can you tell me about your journey through the industry to be where you are today?

Like most people when they’re at university, I just started off as a barista. Working in cafes was better than working in pubs because it seemed to fit the university lifestyle a little bit better. I ended up working for a small roaster. When I finished university, my mates and I looked around and thought, we're not gonna do graphic design because there are no jobs. A mate and I found a five-kilogram Probat roaster that was up for sale, we bought it and set up our own little roasting company, and then I just fell into the job at DC Specialty Coffee after that, and here we are!

And can you tell me a bit about the history of DC or Caffe Ducale? I'd love to know when you rebranded yourself, and what inspired that?

Okay, so we're part of a bigger group called Conga foods, and they’ve been importing fantastic food products into Australia for over 70 years. Caffe Ducale was born 2002 and the idea was to import a specialty coffee that was to be roasted in in Melbourne, to provide to the local market. I came on board in 2008, when the specialty coffee industry was picking up a lot of a lot of steam. The third wave was really peaking at that time, and we needed to make a big decision about how best to respond to what the cafes were wanting. They were wanting better transparency with the product and to know more about the roasting process. So, that’s how DC Specialty Coffee was born. We created blends that represented our ethos. A lot of the guys who work for DC play in bands and have an artistic background, and when we looked at the coffee bags, we saw a canvas we could use. We've got artists, we've got musicians, let's bring them in and let them have a have a go at interpreting the blend. We found that when we did that, people gravitated towards specific blends because they liked the artwork, and they liked the idea. We found that certain people would resonate with certain designs on the coffee bags. So then when we started to create new blends, or new artwork, we were looking for opportunities for us to shine a spotlight on these different demographics and cultural subsets. We found that Caffe Ducale, because of our Italian heritage, a lot of the names of the blends were in Italian, and in order to move forward with the changing landscape, we needed to change that up.

That’s very practical. How has DC Specialty Coffee grown within Conga Foods?

Within our company, we're able to have a lot of freedom to do what we need to do, we've got a lot of trust to be who we are and to make our own decisions. And we get the added bonus of the support and resources of a national company. We're able to flex into different markets that use coffee and get insights into other food industries and categories that can help us make better decisions around marketing and financing.

How did the pandemic affect your marketing strategies?

Being a part of Conga Foods, we are exposed to retail quite frequently. That's the main channel that they'll sell their products into. During Covid we had to decide ‘what are the opportunities people have to drink our coffee at home as well as in cafes?’ We had an interesting exposure to that back in 2017 when we started working with Coles and their project, Coles Local. The first store that we worked with was Coles Local on Union Road in Surry Hills. We developed a product just for them and it took off really well. That led to us talking with the national Coles group. And we went from two trial stores to three to four to twenty to two hundred! Bam, bam, bam, bam! We realised that there wasn't a product like ours there, one with the same visual handbrake that our product had. And there wasn't a product that had the same quality of coffee either. When Covid hit, it just all lined up. Having our brand in Coles, we get direct from consumer feedback from the product. We get insights into how people are using our product differently to how they use it at a café. They'll have different needs and wants out of the product. We use that feedback to keep recreating blends, ideas and products just for them.

Can you tell me a bit about the design on the Coles Local bags?

The Coles Local bags, yeah, they're fun. There are about twelve different stores now, and each one has a great little sandbox in an area around Australia where they will set up nice boutique stores. What we'll do for them is create a blend especially for them, and we'll bring in a local artist to interpret tthe blend and the idea of what the pack should look like to represent the local area. Through doing this, we've met some great artists and we're getting to understand their story and how they use coffee, bringing it all together and create these packs.

Can you tell me a little bit about your brand mission and values?

Fueling individuality and culture is really at the crux of what we want to do. And that can kind of descend all the way down the supply chain to our farmers. We put good quality coffee in the cup. And then we back that up with the stories of everyone that has an input along the way. We try and treat everyone as explorer within the company and this helps us push our coffee further. What are the categories? What are the areas that coffee can exist beyond just being in cafes or in someone's home?  How else could it be used? That’s the way we treat the brand and that's the rudder of the business.

Can you expand a bit more on the core artworks and the artists behind them?

It started very internal. If you can draw, you can come on board. Our first artwork, the B side cassette tape, was done by one of the sons of someone who worked for the company at the time.

And then it just kind of became its own little beast. Every day we’d get messages through social media, people saying ‘hey, love your product, here's my art portfolio’ and we started to build up this database of amazing artists. It got me thinking, I need to either create more products or build a gallery because this work is quite amazing. It's really encouraging to see that our product can have that effect on people out there.

Absolutely. And what is your personal favourite product?

Critical hit, that's my favourite. It is the most recent one we’ve done, and it’s also the most considered one. It was conceptualized deep in the midst of the pandemic, and I was playing way too much Xbox. I've got a friend that works for a computer game company, and speaking to him, I realized that all the gamers were drinking coffee during lockdowns. We discovered a whole market that was completely untapped, and decided to go down this gaming, E-sport rabbit hole, and we started finding this whole culture and subsets of people involved in the industry, whether it was artists or developers, they all drunk coffee. So yeah, that's one that we definitely got right.

Would you say that your business model is largely collaborative?

I think that when you encourage creativity, you've got to listen to everyone. There are no dumb ideas. When we're onboarding new staff, we really reiterate that this is a space where you your ideas count. And we need your ideas because you've all got a completely different perspective on how you drink coffee. Collaborating on ideas and concepts with the team and suppliers is definitely the fabric of the company.

Do you see your relationship with Brewtech as a collaboration?

Yeah, the relationship with Brewtech is great, they understand us and appreciate us for who we are. They are an extension of our business. When they're walking into a customer’s café to carry out a service or an emergency breakdown, they always understand that they are under the DC Specialty Coffee banner, and they're representing us when they're there. I think what we have is beyond a transactional relationship, it’s mutually respectful and understanding, and we’re able to keep growing together over the years.

Can you tell me how you met Craig, and where that relationship began?

I was going through my phone the other day, and I reckon I've got about six or seven different contacts for Craig. I said ‘Hey Siri call Craig Milton’ and she’s like ‘which one?’ Craig kind of just drifted into our life. About seven or eight years ago, we needed some custom work done and Dan from Specht recommended him to us. We've kind of come to understand that when we want that serious work done on our La Marzocco’s, Craig is the man for the job. Yeah, he's just stuck to the barnacle on the business now, I guess. We love Brewtech because they always do the job professionally. They're getting it done, and they're leaving the customer satisfied.

That’s really kind, I’m sure Craig will be stoked to hear that! Thanks for your time today.

No worries!