GCR petitions industry leaders on the year ahead: the opportunities, challenges, and trends set to change the game and demand our attention in 2020.
Dr. Victoria Behrmann
Managing Director, Neuhaus Neotec
For 2020 and the mid-term, we expect high levels of investment globally in coffee handling and roasting facilities.
In Europe, supermarkets are spending on proliferating their own brands, which range from green coffee handling to capsule production and meet growing consumer demand.
In the specialty coffee market, there’s a new generation of roasters – in a development similar to the craft beer scene – with a focus on new aroma profiles and an openness to new technologies. Neuhaus challenges conventional drum roasting technology with the Neoroast, which offers a much broader range of roasting varieties. The hot air system opens up new roasting potential without impacting the aroma. The roaster concept “Le belle sorelle”, shown at HostMilano, combines a conventional drum with hot air technology. Drum roasters are also having a renaissance. As such, Neuhaus Neotec is developing both technologies to offer roasters high-end technology.
In Asia, Vietnam is leading growth in instant coffee production for export. This is in response to government support designed to offset a drop in the price of green coffee and boost added value in the country. Investment in European manufacturing equipment is steady for industrial-scale roasting and instant coffee production.
The largest Vietnamese roasters favour Rotating Fluidised Bed technology, and Neuhaus Neotec is proud to be the leading supplier in this market segment. The Chinese market, as any other tea-dominated country, is developing fast and we see large potential for the next few years. There’s a growing need for regional service hubs to help clients.
The Internet of Things leads the push globally to improve production capabilities. Neuhaus Neotec invests in innovative control systems to allow operators better oversight and more user-friendly operation. State-of-the-art hardware such as iO links instead of extensive cabling allow not only for reduced installation efforts, but also for improved use of signal control. Predictive maintenance of main components provides potential to reduce stocking of spare parts and avoids down-times. Improved software also allows for easier operation in making straightforward changes to roast profiles and recipes.
Those developments are only the start, and Neuhaus Neotec will be at the centre of these new opportunities in the coffee roaster community.