Foundation Coffee and the rise of the office solution – BeanScene

After 30 years of investing in New Zealand’s coffee industry, Foundation Coffee has taken its office coffee solutions to the next level with the help of Franke Coffee Systems.

When Foundation Coffee first started roasting, office coffee largely consisted of instant granules and a kettle. Most informal discussions happened around the water cooler and specialty coffee’s third wave was just gaining momentum.

Today, offices with professional-grade setups, specialty beans, and discerning employees are another competitor to the café. Coffee, in some form, is seen as a must-have addition for many businesses.

Helping companies navigate this transition has required not just quality coffee but also coffee systems capable of delivering café-quality experiences at scale – a challenge Foundation addresses through its partnership with Franke Coffee Systems.

“At our core – and this often gets forgotten – we’re a coffee roaster. A lot of people in the industry run around trying to be everything, and there’s an interesting delineation between roasters and machine manufacturers,” says Foundation Coffee Managing Director Jamie Galloway.

“We roast coffee, and we keep reminding ourselves that our job is to deliver end-to-end quality service, then integrate that through our premium coffee machines.”

Friction points and fully automatic coffee machines

Jamie sees Foundation Coffee’s role as removing everyday friction points, not simply supplying beans to offices, cafés, and other coffee environments.

In shared office kitchens, where unstacked dishwashers and messy sinks can wreak havoc on relationships, a streamlined, professional coffee system can go a long way to improving life at work.

“In our model, we work alongside clients and ask: what else is a real friction point? We’re very conscious of the passive-aggressive Post-It notes that get slapped up in offices: ‘do your dishes,’ ‘reload the dishwasher’, that sort of thing,” says Jamie.

“The root issue usually isn’t the dishes themselves but an inefficient wider system built around break times.”

The mess associated with coffee setups featuring grinders and manual machines only adds to this.

“It has the potential to get worse if you add in a grinder, and the mess from ground coffee,” adds Jamie.

“In a café, sweeping up coffee grounds and cleaning is a day job. In an office, it’s another layer of tension with where the responsibility lies.”

One of the main beverage machine suppliers Foundation works with is Franke Coffee Systems. The Swiss-engineered manufacturer is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fully automatic coffee machines and recently introduced the New A Line globally at Host Milano.

Jamie says, in addition to making a consistent coffee, Franke machines help remove common friction points around the coffee-making ritual in the office and beyond.

“Franke is continually innovating to make every customer experience simpler, better, and more enjoyable,” he says.

“Franke machines are self-contained: grinding, puck management, and waste handling are all integrated. A lot of premium corporates have beautiful kitchen fit outs and we partner very closely with clients’ architects, builders and plumbers to ensure installation is of a very high standard.

“The partnership with Franke came from a need to provide a high-end solution for our clients. Franke pairs world-class design with exceptional functionality to bring café-quality coffee into the modern premium workspace.

“One of our company taglines is ‘bring the café into the office’ – our offering and partnership are well aligned.”

Ease of use is a key focus across Franke’s fully automatic coffee machine portfolio, from the Classic A Line and Mytico to the New A Line.

Jamie says, while the touchscreen navigation is a leading feature of Franke machines, the real gamechanger is how potential machine problems are communicated.

“Franke’s machines are intuitive. The touchscreen navigation guides users through fault finding and helps isolate exactly what’s wrong. They also have a clever visual colour coding system on their warnings: if it’s orange, it’s generally fixable on site; if it turns red, it’s leading towards a technical visit,” he says.

“Working with clients, we’ve learned if you see orange, the issue can likely be resolved on site. If it’s red, let’s have a quick phone call and see if we can fix it remotely, otherwise, we can go on-site to problem solve.

“That kind of swift, precise, logical approach sits well with New Zealand and Australian corporates. They want to be efficient, they don’t want delays, and they don’t want the noise or disruption to
drag on.”

Fresh starts

The wider coffee industry is markedly different than it was 30 years ago, and Foundation Coffee is no different. While technology is central to the company’s offering, Jamie says the roastery’s evolution has been equally important.

Acquired by New Zealand-based roaster Mojo in 2025, its expertise in the office and machine supply space has been combined with its new parent company’s own coffee history.

“The reason for the acquisition was that my business cut its teeth in business to business, getting a deep understanding of client workflows, office break-time tensions, and even down to dialling in the machine cup filling so there’s no spillage and frustration,” says Jamie.

“Mojo, on the other hand, is steeped in a rich understanding of cafés – they’re epic at hospitality. They brought us in so that, together, we round out both ends of the market.

“We are part of a larger group, but we’re still very clearly and proudly New Zealand owned.”

That pride in New Zealand, and pride in service, makes Foundation Coffee and Franke perfect partners.

“We’re deeply invested in New Zealand business, while drawing on Franke’s global expertise from Switzerland as our machine partner,” says Jamie.

“Together, we can craft solutions that are specific to Kiwi businesses.” 

For more information, visit coffee.franke.com