Step Into Coffee Planet’s 25,000 Ft2 Coffee Roasting and Packaging Plant in Jafza, and You’ll Find 30 Dedicated Team Members Standing Over the Probat Roasters, Tending to Each Batch With Extreme Care. The Company’s Roastmaster, Cleia Junqueira, Is an Expert at Bringing the Best Flavour Out of Each and Every Coffee and Because Coffee Planet Was Founded on the Principle of Both High-quality Speciality Coffee and Responsible Sourcing, Everyone Benefits, From Farmers to Consumers.
“Very few people understand that Coffee Planet is a speciality coffee roaster,” Cleia explains. “Due to our size, we are often confused with commercial coffee roasters. This is far from the truth and is evident in the quality of product, we so carefully deliver to our customers and consumers. The process of selecting and analysing the green coffee we purchase is a science and one in which we take enormous care and pride. We have been working with our green coffee suppliers for many years, and they clearly understand the high-quality that needs to be delivered to us. Great care and attention are taken to ensure this happens.”
The Latest Technology, the Best People
Coffee Planet works with a broad range of clients to create something special and unique to separate them from the crowd. Serving blue-chip companies and organisations such as Carrefour, Etihad Airways, Hilton, ADNOC, IKEA and Spinneys, the company retains its leadership position in the industry by investing heavily in R&D. “To find growth in existing and new markets, R&D is a continual and very important process. Our success depends on this. The concept of R&D applies to the renovation of existing products and the innovation of new products, which may mean inventing completely new product lines and categories,” says Cleia.
There has been considerable investment in the company’s roasting and packaging equipment too, with all roasting equipment coming from Probat in Germany, which is considered to be the best roasting manufacturer in the world. “We doubled our roasting capacity last year, by adding an additional Probat 120 Neptune coffee roaster,” Cleia continues. “The addition of this coffee roaster increased our production to 360 tons per month.” Currently, Coffee Planet’s facilities operate 24/7 365 days a year, even during the pandemic.
The fully automated packaging equipment is all from Italy and is utilised for the company’s amazing 100 % Arabica speciality coffee, Turkish and Arabic coffee, pillow pouches and pods, and Nespresso compatible biodegradable capsules.
Much of the state-of-the-art technology in the industry today was not available even a decade ago.
“Importing and roasting more than 200 tons of coffee per month means our operations are required to run smoothly and efficiently”
This includes Coffee Planet’s laboratory equipment, where every batch sample can be carefully analysed by the company’s Agtron equipment to ensure that there is absolute consistency in the roasted coffee. Coffee machines have also made huge strides in technology to limit errors as much as possible by the baristas. As Coffee Planet are distributors of leading coffee equipment manufacturers, including Franke, Nuova Simonelli, La Cimbali and Schaerer, it has also adopted these pioneering technologies.
However, the company never underestimates the exceptional skills and abilities of its highly talented and professional team, whether that be the Roastmaster, baristas, trainers, engineers or quality control personnel. “Whilst we always adopt the latest technologies, our greatest asset is our incredible people,” explains Cleia.
“Throughout our organisation, we value everybody’s effort and contributions. Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and being on first-name terms go a long way in making people feel valued. We create an environment in the workplace which ensures our people apply themselves to always do their best.
“You never stop learning in the coffee industry, and there are new ideas and products launched daily. People become fascinated by this and take the time and effort to learn more. If we keep our team happy, they will keep our customers happy!”
Smooth and Efficient
“Coffee Planet has been working extremely hard this year in preparing a new five- year strategic plan, following the challenges presented by the Covid-19 crisis. This has involved carefully analysing how the different business segments contribute to the top line and bottom line of the P&L. “A few people still don’t understand how diversified Coffee Planet is,” says Cleia. “We operate in Hotels, Retail, Online, On the Go, International, Foodservice, Office Coffee Solutions and Franchise channels.
We have extremely exciting projects in all these channels, which will be launched during 2021. These include extremely bespoke and unique single-origin estate coffees from very carefully selected farmers, a new bespoke Nespresso Compatible capsule line, a freeze-dried coffee retail range, a cold brew range, and new blends.”
With a long-term vision for growth, Coffee Planet believes that the functions that contribute most to its success are marketing, selling and innovation. These are what produce results. Of course, Jafza has also been a boon to the company’s ongoing success.
“The 100% ownership and zero import taxation was a big incentive for Coffee Planet to move to Jafza, alongside the ease of business set up and logistics benefits.
The Jafza structure also works well for us through being close to the Sea Port of Jebel Ali and Al Maktoum Airport. This assists us considerably in managing our supply chain and logistic operations.
“Importing and roasting more than 200 tons of coffee per month means our operations are required to run smoothly and efficiently. Any delays within this function could cause serious ramifications to the company and the roasted coffee we so proudly deliver throughout the region and world.”