5THWAVE - The Business of Coffee and Hospitality
128 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsA forward-thinking interview series examining the business of progressive coffee culture.
The 5THWAVE Podcast is hosted by Jeffrey Young, Editor-in-Chief of 5THWAVE magazine and Founder of Allegra Group.
Each episode features inspiring stories, business lessons, and thought leadership from the entrepreneurs and industry experts blazing trails to success across the world of coffee.
The podcast will delve into the detail of achieving operational excellence, get to grips with green coffee sourcing and seek out the very best of global coffee culture. We’ll also examine the future of e-commerce and coffee at home, the changing face of cafés and coffee shops, and how to hone winning HR strategies – plus much more.
Get in touch and tell us what topics you'd like to hear by visiting www.worldcoffeeportal.com/5THWAVEPodcast
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Episodes
Industry parallels – coffee vs. wine
August 12, 2021 11:53 - 31 minutes - 43.6 MBOn the podcast this week, we’re embracing the spirit of summer and diving into the world of wine to explore its parallels with coffee. The wine industry is often considered ahead of the curve compared to coffee, but is that always the case? In conversations with leading wine and coffee experts, we explore the history and influence of these two worlds to offer a deeper understanding of the wine market and how to maximise its potential in coffee businesses. Morten Scholer, coffee an...
The hospitality staffing crisis
July 29, 2021 09:26 - 34 minutes - 47.8 MBOn the podcast today we examine the staffing crisis affecting hospitality businesses globally and the impact Covid-19 and Brexit has had on the hiring landscape. In conversations with trade representatives and leading operators from London and New York, we explore the long-term challenges of developing meaningful careers within the hospitality space and solutions for attracting and retaining the brightest talent. Tony Sophoclides, Strategic Affairs Director for the trade associat...
Starbucks at 50
July 15, 2021 12:29 - 25 minutes - 35.5 MBAs the world’s largest coffee chain turns 50, we explore Starbucks’ enduring influence on the business of coffee. In a collaboration with 5THWAVE magazine, we bring you insights from six global coffee professionals as they reflect on Starbucks' cultural legacy. In a series of conversations with Jeffrey Young, we hear from coffee historian, Professor Jonathan Morris, Kent Bakke, Board Member, La Marzocco, Maurizio Guili, Corporate Strategy Executive for Simonelli Group, Scott Rao, c...
The role of food in coffee businesses
July 01, 2021 13:03 - 39 minutes - 54.1 MBOn the podcast today, we examine the interplay between food and coffee in hospitality businesses. The upside to adding food to a coffee proposition is clear but delivering excellent coffee and food simultaneously is never easy, and success often depends on the scale and scope of your business. Exploring this week's theme, we speak with four leading operators, of all shapes and sizes, who share insights on how their businesses deliver a delicate balance of first-class food alongside...
The cold coffee revolution
June 17, 2021 11:43 - 29 minutes - 40.6 MBThis week we put cold coffee under the spotlight to illuminate the latest trends in this fast-growing category. We’ll explore how the cold coffee revolution has taken off in North America, and the opportunities for growth in markets worldwide. In this episode we’re joined by a brewing equipment supplier and coffee expert from Asia Pacific, and two senior figures from leading cold coffee brands in the US. They’ll discuss the popularity of game-changing products, such as cold brew a...
Barista vs. Machine
June 03, 2021 10:21 - 30 minutes - 41.4 MBIn today’s episode we’re exploring the world of espresso machine technology and the future of automation, and asking the question – will super-automatic coffee machines ever replace the barista? To help answer this, we speak to leading manufacturers of traditional and super-automatic machines as well as a US Barista Champion to unpack how this technology is advancing, what that means for café owners, and how the role of the barista will evolve with the rise of automation. We hear ...
The genius behind Hoffmann Industries
May 27, 2021 03:00 - 48 minutes - 66.1 MBToday we are bringing you a very special episode, a full-length interview with enigmatic and influential entrepreneur James Hoffmann. In this conversation, James discusses his ambitions, business sensibilities, and the mindset that has helped build his remarkable career. James Hoffmann is world-renowned in the coffee industry. A former World Barista Champion, co-founder of Square Mile Coffee Roasters, and author of The World Atlas of Coffee, he is also a prolific YouTuber who has a...
Coffeepreneurs – Inside the minds of three leading coffee entrepreneurs
May 21, 2021 08:09 - 28 minutes - 39.4 MBToday we’re exploring the careers of three highly impressive individuals in the business of coffee to learn their stories and the secrets behind their success. We speak with James Hoffmann, Gregory Zamfotis, and Toby Smith to delve into their different entrepreneurial approaches and discover the motivations and guiding principles that have underpinned their successful careers. Our conversation with the multi-faceted entrepreneur, James Hoffmann, reveals business learnings and hid...
Spotlight on China – A land of vast scale and opportunity
May 06, 2021 09:12 - 31 minutes - 43.5 MBOn the podcast this week we are turning the spotlight to China and exploring how the traditionally tea-drinking country is rapidly growing into one of the most dynamic and opportune coffee markets in the world. From billion-dollar valuations for start-up coffee companies to a breathtaking number of new café openings, the Chinese coffee market is a machine you cannot ignore. In this episode, we’ll be speaking with the COO of multi-national coffee shop chain Costa Coffee, a two-time...
Spotlight on the Sydney coffee scene – the future beyond Covid-19
April 22, 2021 13:34 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MBOn the podcast this week we speak to three leading lights in the Sydney coffee community to explore how Covid-19 has impacted the influential Australian coffee market and how it has begun to recover. With cafés already open and thriving across Sydney and other parts of Australia, we get a glimpse into what the coffee landscape might look like once global vaccination efforts begin to take effect, and how café owners should start preparing for a return to a new normality. Jenny Will...
Grounds for optimism
April 09, 2021 12:41 - 29 minutes - 40.9 MBWhen Covid-19 hit over 12 months ago, the global hospitality industry was confronted with its biggest crisis in many generations. Now, as we look towards the end of the pandemic and businesses worldwide return to some form of normality, café owners may be asking themselves, “should we be cautious or optimistic”? We believe there is much to be positive about. In this episode, we are speaking to coffee business leaders and a global economist to explore the positive business trends an...
Maintaining successful business partnerships
March 25, 2021 08:18 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MBRunning a coffee business has never been easy, but it's certainly more manageable if you have the right business partner. The question is – who should you choose and how should you work together? In this episode, we are exploring three successful coffee business partnerships that have stood the test of time to glean some of the secrets of their success. Amber Jacobsen, Co-founder of Partners Coffee Roasters, discusses her business partnership with co-founder Adam Boyd, and shares h...
Reframing the 'leader' - a conversation with Laila Ghambari
March 04, 2021 04:00 - 31 minutes - 43.8 MBJeffrey Young speaks with Laila Ghambari, Director of Cafes at Stumptown Coffee Roasters, to get a glimpse into how the pioneering specialty coffee business manages its cafes and learn how she has been steering the ship through the turbulent waters of the pandemic. We originally spoke to Laila for our episode on Fostering team culture, but she offered such thought-provoking insights on leadership and navigating through change that we felt the interview deserved an episode of its ow...
5th Wave at origin - Bringing coffee farmers to the table
February 19, 2021 04:00 - 56 minutes - 77.9 MBJeffrey Young is joined by David Griswold, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers – the world’s first B Corp certified coffee company - to explore what the 5th Wave of coffee means in practice and its significance to coffee farmers at origin. David is a leading figure in the world of specialty coffee and a pioneer in sustainable, ethical trade. In this conversation, David and Jeffrey discuss the importance of forging human connections with coffee farmers and foste...
Delicious morsels of wisdom - a conversation with Angus Thirlwell
February 05, 2021 04:00 - 38 minutes - 53.6 MBJeffrey Young speaks with Angus Thirlwell, CEO & Co-founder of Hotel Chocolat – a brand that forges a unique space for itself in the retail chocolate market. In this episode, Angus shares the secrets that helped him scale his business and discusses the parallel trends between chocolate and coffee. Angus is a master brand builder and a pioneering figure in the world of chocolate. During our conversation with him for the Christmas episode, Unwrapping the chocolate industry, Angus sh...
Fostering team culture
January 29, 2021 04:00 - 30 minutes - 42.1 MBTeams can achieve extraordinary things when human beings feel united and pull towards the same goal. But building powerful workplace team culture can be hard, especially in a café, with staff on different shifts and cafes spaced miles apart. This week we explore how three successful companies foster powerful, united cultures that help their teams and businesses thrive across geographies and even through a pandemic. In this episode, Guido Bernardinelli, CEO of La Marzocco, outlines...
Achieving sustainably profitable coffee farming
January 14, 2021 04:00 - 32 minutes - 44 MBWhile specialty coffee consumption continues to grow, it’s an unfortunate truth that for many, coffee growing does not offer a financially viable livelihood. It is also true the quality of life in these communities almost always lags behind those of coffee drinkers in western economies. This week we are exploring how three different organisations are trying to address these problems. We’ll hear from Carlos Ortiz, Manager of Volcafe's sourcing strategy Volcafe Way. He shares how his...
Growing an icon - a conversation with Tim Wendelboe
January 08, 2021 04:00 - 40 minutes - 56.3 MBJeffrey Young speaks with Tim Wendelboe, founder of the Oslo-based roastery that exemplifies the Nordic specialty coffee movement. In this conversation Tim discusses the business principles he used to build the iconic roastery and explores the challenges coffee growers face in building financially sustainable businesses. Tim is a shining example of a successful business leader guided by principles, ethics, and transparency. We featured Tim in our Careers in Coffee episode but wer...
Unwrapping the chocolate industry
December 18, 2020 13:25 - 32 minutes - 45.3 MBWith the many parallels that exist between chocolate and coffee, this week Jeffrey Young is joined by innovators and disruptors from the world of chocolate to get a better understanding of this industry and explore what it can teach us about coffee. Angus Thirlwell, CEO and Co-Founder of Hotel Chocolat reveals how out his out-of-the-box thinking created an enticing customer experience that has since helped the brand scale to over 100 retail stores globally. Ben Greensmith, ...
Scaling from one, to two, to four and beyond – a conversation with David Abrahamovitch
December 11, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutes - 45.8 MBJeffrey Young speaks with David Abrahamovitch, CEO and Founder of London-based specialty coffee chain Grind. In this conversation, David talks about the necessity of investing in integrated technology systems, how to boost café profit margins and the importance of looking after the people in your business. David is a great example of operator who has successfully used technology to scale his coffee business and offers exceptional insights on how to run a profitable café chain. We...
Spotlight on Brazil
December 04, 2020 04:00 - 29 minutes - 40 MBJeffrey Young is joined by coffee specialists from Brazil to dive into the country’s globally important and fast-changing coffee drinking market. We’ll explore what types of coffee Brazilians are drinking, the major trends on supermarket shelves, changes in the roasting market and much more. Marco Suplicy, founder of Suplicy Cafés shares how the quality of coffee Brazilian’s are drinking is changing and where the competition is heating up on supermarket shelves. Henrique Cambrai...
An unrelenting focus on personal growth - a conversation with Ross Quail
November 26, 2020 04:00 - 34 minutes - 47 MBJeffrey Young speaks with Ross Quail, Sales Director South Asia for Hemro International, and learns Ross' perspectives on the long term impacts of COVID on the Australian cafe market, the future of espresso and how he helped grow St Ali, a Melbourne cafe roaster, from 100kg a week to 10 tonnes a week. Ross' career is an extraordinary case study on what you can achieve in your coffee career when you keep an unrelenting focus on your personal growth. We're releasing this full interv...
The business of green coffee
November 19, 2020 12:36 - 31 minutes - 43.6 MBJeffrey Young is joined by green coffee providers to better understand the business of green coffee. We'll explore how a coffee bean gets from a farm into our daily cup, why Brazil is able to produce coffee at a profit while other countries struggle, and how we're going to maintain customer choice given that farming isn't sustainable for many. Stephen Hurst, founder of Mercanta discusses the impact of Covid and the challenges of scaling specialty coffee to bring benefit to more fa...
Careers in coffee
November 06, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutes - 45.5 MBJeffrey Young is joined by three highly successful coffee entrepreneurs to learn their stories and the secrets of their success. Tim Wendelboe, founder of Oslo-based roastery Tim Wendelboe, reveals how his obsession with coffee quality and his unrelenting desire to learn have taken him far away from his cosy Oslo cafe and has landed him deep in the coffee fields of Latin America. Elaine Swift, Regional Director (North) for UCC Coffee, shares the management and leadership qualiti...
Using back-of-house technology to grow your cafe chain
October 22, 2020 03:00 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MBJeffrey Young is joined by cafe chain operators and back-of-house technology providers to understand what tech building blocks you will need to scale from one, to two, to four and beyond. David Abrahamovitch, CEO of Grind, shows how he uses back-of-house technology to manage KPIs across his 11 cafes. Joe Cripps, Managing Director of Trail, shows how removing cognitive load from your team simultaneously lowers costs, increases revenues while boosting customer service. Dane Atkin...
Pivoting through a pandemic - a conversation with Nick Stone
October 15, 2020 03:00 - 29 minutes - 39.9 MBJeffrey Young speaks with Nick Stone, founder of US-based Bluestone Lane, and learns how he pivoted his 50 cafe stores employing 650 staff during the height of the COVID pandemic. We're releasing this full interview with Nick Stone as a bonus episode because we believe it's worth a listen. It's bursting with insights on how we can all be better people managers and decision makers. Get in touch and tell us what topics you'd like to hear by visiting www.worldcoffeeportal.com/5THWAV...
The future of the at-home coffee market
October 08, 2020 03:00 - 32 minutes - 45.3 MBJeffrey Young is joined by coffee subscription, e-commerce and home appliance experts to discuss the latest coffee at-home trends and how Covid-19 has shifted the landscape. This week's guests are Mike Lackman, CEO of Trade Coffee, Maria Colon, Vice President of Marketing and Doug Parkinson, Category Marketing Manager of De'Longhi North America and Paul Radin, CEO of Coffee Hit. Get in touch and tell us what topics you'd like to hear by visiting www.worldcoffeeportal.com/5THWA...
The long-term impact of Covid-19 on the hospitality sector
September 24, 2020 16:46 - 25 minutes - 34.7 MBJeffrey Young speaks with business leaders to understand how Covid-19 has impacted the global hospitality sector and what long-term changes we can expect to see. This week's guests are Nicholas Stone, CEO and Founder of Bluestone Lane, Seven Miles Coffee Roasters CEO Jenny Willits, and Wilhelm Liebenberg, Co-founder of Coco Safar. Get in touch and tell us what topics you'd like to hear by visiting www.worldcoffeeportal.com/5THWAVE/Podcast