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In search of coffee excellence: Entrepreneur invests 6 years in self-serve brewing technology

Entrepreneur Jeff Osburn custom designed his own self-service coffee brewer to achieve the product he wanted. After six years of study and development, he believes his brewer can meet the demands of today's coffee consumer.

July 31, 2019 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

The search for the perfect cup of coffee never ends. Nor does the challenge of providing it to the consumer in a convenient, easy-to- use manner — at an acceptable price.

With the popularity of specialty coffee in the last two decades, delivering the level of quality the consumer now expects in a self-service format does not easily lend itself to a sustainable business model. But the quest continues.

The quest begins

The brewer offers 15 different drinks and serves one cup at a time.

Jeff Osburn became aware of the multi-faceted challenges involved in the coffee service business after opening a coffee shop in Fort Worth, Texas in 2010. After launching his coffee shop, the food and beverage veteran came across an opportunity to provide coffee service for a local supermarket. He quickly learned that an attended coffee bar was not economically viable in a location with irregular traffic. The labor cost of operating a coffee bar can be as high as 40% of sales.

"I really felt there was an opportunity to do something different," Osburn said, and so he began exploring automated, self-serve options. He invested three years researching the opportunity, and in the process, he came across a self-serve brewer that grinds the coffee beans, froths milk and serves the coffee one cup at a time.

"I had a good product, but it didn't meet my expectation of how good the coffee experience should be," said Osburn.

The brewer didn't use fresh milk and the extraction system, while it produced good American coffee, did not produce real espresso at the correct grind size, temperature or tamping pressure.

A custom designed espresso bar

He continued studying brewing technology for another three years, and ultimately designed an espresso bar that includes a brewer, a payment system and an ice dispenser. The countertop brewer from Italy-based manufacturer, HLF Italian Design, allows the user to adjust grind size and tamping pressure. The brewer can hold two different types of milk, enabling both a dairy and non-dairy based milk. It also has three different flavor options, and can make nitro coffee as well as ice lattes.

"We're able to make excellent regular fresh brewed coffee as well as good espresso for the basis of lattes, mochas and those sorts of things," Osburn said. "There's no manual cleaning or anything to be done. The computer on the espresso machine runs the sanitation cycle automatically." 

The brewer comes with a touchscreen menu, and has all modular components that can be removed without the use of tools.

The ice portion control system uses artificial intelligence and computer vision.

Osburn added proprietary programming to the ice portion control system from Follett LLC which uses artificial intelligence and computer vision that dispenses ice for the exact level needed. 

"If you're inconsistent with water and ice in a drink, you have an inconsistent product for the consumer," he said. 

The machine, which has been tested now for two years, provides what Osburn calls "true espresso" with fresh milk. 

If the customer has a problem with the machine, they can select help on the interactive card reader, enter their name and cell phone number and request a refund, and immediately receive a redemption code to replace a drink within 15 minutes.

Osburn can monitor product in the machine from a remote location thanks to the cellular connectivity that also supports the machine's credit card payment authorization.

The machine offers 15 different drinks and can produce 100 to 150 drinks per day without having to restock, depending on product mix. 

An atypical coffee service model

Osburn's Canopy Point Coffee does not follow the traditional U.S. coffee service business model, where a service company provides the brewer and sells the location coffee and related supplies. Instead, Osburn follows more of a vending business model, servicing the machines on a scheduled weekly basis and charging customers by the cup. 

"We own the equipment; we provide it at no cost to host locations," he explained. "Depending on conditions, we pay a royalty on sales if that's something that they're looking for." The company also provides customizable espresso bar cabinetry and a video surveillance system.

A 12-ounce coffee cup retails for $1.75, including sales tax. Some ice drinks range up to $3.75.

"It's still a bargain relative to Starbucks, and I think is a better coffee experience at the same time as it's being ground and brewed for each cup rather than sitting in an urn," Osburn said.

Osburn has tested the system in three locations for the past year and a half. One unit serves a convenience store, where the customer pays at a counter as opposed to paying at the machine.

"It's really done awesome," he said. In a five-hour window on a weekend, another machine serves about 150 drinks at a church. Ice drinks account for 35% to 40% of all drinks sold to date.

The company also offers a more traditional office coffee program where the location pays a rental fee for the equipment and is billed for product delivered.

The HLF brewer is made in Italy and sent to a West Coast facility where the payment system is integrated.

The coffee is imported directly from Javalliance, a Central America coffee cooperative and a partner company. It is then roasted by Javataza Coffee LLC in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, which is also a partner company. 

The company's focus going forward is on high traffic locations, including foodservice, hospitals and micro markets.

Photos courtesy of Canopy Point Coffee.
 

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.