GCR Leaders Symposium 2026: Business insights from leading Australian roasters – BeanScene

For Australian café owners grappling with rising costs and margin pressure, insights from the country’s leading roasters at the Global Coffee Report (GCR) Leaders Symposium at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) 2026 pointed to a consistent theme – that sustainable growth is built on a disciplined approach to both numbers and people.

From managing the difficult jump in production volumes to investing in the right talent at the right time, leaders from ST. ALi Coffee Roasters, Coffee Supreme, Nomad Coffee Group, and Di Pacci Coffee Company stressed the importance of clear forecasting, strong cash flow, and the humility to seek outside expertise.

The insights formed part of a broader conversation about where coffee is heading in Australia and globally, with operators across airports, fuel retail, and large-scale events demonstrating how quickly expectations are rising beyond the café environment. And even global chains like Starbucks are refining their approach in Australia, doubling down on convenience formats such as drive-through while reinforcing their position as community coffee destinations.

Speaking to some of Australia’s leading roasters, the symposium’s moderator, GCR and BeanScene Publisher Sarah Baker, asked the panel which financial signals matter most when preparing to scale.

Coffee Supreme CEO Andrew Low emphasised the importance of both capital and capability.

“I would say, have your cash sorted, and have a mix of people who have been on the journey for phase one, and bring a couple of select people in who’ve seen the other side and can help connect the dots,” he said.

He also pointed to a critical pressure point in the growth curve for roasting businesses.

“My experience would suggest that getting to a couple of tonne [per week] is a bit of a grind, but you can get there with some momentum. The hardest gap to transcend is probably two to 10 tonnes, because everything at that point in time triples in cost, but profit doesn’t come with it for some period of time,” he said.

“You’ve got the roaster that cost five times as much. You’ve got the warehouse that’s three times the size that you haven’t filled. You’ve got staff to do different functional jobs that aren’t fully utilised. So understanding your cost base, not just at the two tonne mark, but what it might be to support a customer base five times as large, and price for that future, is the most important thing.”

For Lachlan Ward, CEO of ST. ALi, the conversation often came back to people and leadership readiness.

“You get to certain points where you know you’re faced with the next big leap,” he said.

“It’s about acknowledging maybe that you don’t have the people for the next step, or being honest and vulnerable enough to know that you don’t have all the answers and need to look elsewhere to get some help to take the step.”

Nomad Coffee Group CEO Craig Dickson reinforced the importance of long-term planning, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. Nomad has built several roasteries and quickly grown into them – or outgrown them in some cases.

“When you begin to really project out five to 10 years, you begin to look at it and realise you might be in a predicament by 2029. That means I need to order another roaster in 2027,” he said.

“We’ve learned you’ve really got to get that forecasting and planning and future projections right to make sure you do build something that you can scale into for the long term.”

Looking ahead, Di Pacci Coffee Company Founder and Director Michael Rababi struck an optimistic tone about the resilience of the coffee industry, despite current headwinds for cafés (some panelists predicted  10% café closures in the near future).

“The exciting thing about coffee is, no matter which side of it goes down [wholesale or domestic], another side is going to go up,” he said, noting the fuel crisis could impact the cost of products.

“I don’t think coffee’s ever going to die. It’s always looking up, but it depends which way.”

Coffee at fuel stations, airports and major events

Set against that backdrop, the competitive landscape is also shifting.

The symposium’s opening session, Beyond the Café, explored how coffee is expanding into major events, service stations, and airports – segments rapidly lifting their standards around quality, convenience, and experience.

For The Big Group, coffee is increasingly embedded in large-scale experiences spanning major events such as the Australian Open and Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne. CEO Kate Langford said delivering quality coffee at scale often comes down to people.

“We’ve done all the hard work in bringing in the right collaborators. Then we pass that into the staff and train them,” she said.

“We’ve put a major focus on staff training, recognition, and reviewing feedback from our events so we can close the gap. We can’t just set and forget. You can’t train somebody on a coffee machine and expect them to work it four weeks later. You’ve got to build up. So you’ve got to constantly be out there, beside them, and working with them.”

Langford emphasised coffee’s role as a social anchor within premium hospitality.

“It’s more than catering – we’re experience architects. We’re trying to create the best moments in people’s lives, whether that’s a wedding, the Australian Open, or a day out,” she said.

“Coffee is part of the experience of an event. Most people arrange to meet over coffee. It will be a major part of what we do going forward, and we’ll always be looking at it.”

For Freedom Fuels, which operates 40 branded retail outlets, the shift is about redefining the role of the service station. CEO Mark McKenzie described a broader transformation underway across the sector.

“Service stations are either becoming fully automated fuel sites, or hospitality destinations seeking to hold customers at the site, rather than just push them through the network. We’re in the latter,” he said.

Freedom Fuels is trying to move from the ‘grab-and-go’ nature of products like coffee to creating places where people “dwell”.

“I suppose café-style environments in metro areas, and roadhouse-style experiences regionally.”

The company has leaned heavily into partnerships, including with Merlo Coffee, as well as complementary food and beverage brands, to build a more compelling offer.

“Our philosophy is: we’re fuel experts, not coffee and hospitality experts. So our goal is to partner with people that can bring expertise into our business – and we create co-dependency in terms of our offerings, which creates longer term partnerships.”

That strategy is already reshaping customer behaviour. At one site, fuel volumes have effectively doubled – with the main difference being the convenience offering in that time.

“We’ve also seen one in five customers visiting specifically for coffee. We’re effectively being treated as a café. People are using our forecourt for meetings – which tells me the coffee’s OK.”

SSP Australia & New Zealand operates hospitality outlets in 12 Australian airports, as well as Sydney Central train station. National Head of Coffee Operations Martin Nguyen said the perception of airport coffee is shifting rapidly.

Passengers are increasingly encountering café-quality offerings in terminals designed to feel more like retail and lifestyle destinations than transit hubs. However, consistency remains a key operational hurdle.

Nguyen said delivering quality coffee in high-traffic environments requires a combination of training, automation, and equipment investment, particularly as operators contend with labour shortages and rising costs.

“Right now, at the airport, a six-ounce coffee is around $6.50 – sometimes $7, depending on the brand we partner with,” he said, noting that higher operational costs in airports contribute to this.

“But when customers see that you’re serving a well-known, premium coffee, they’re willing to pay for it.

“But I don’t think the current perception is entirely fair on the industry. People will happily pay $10 or $15 for a glass of wine – but why can’t you pay $7 or $8 for a good coffee? I think we need to shift the mindset and perception. If you’re getting a good coffee, it’s worth paying for.”

Langford echoed that sentiment, pointing to pricing as both a consumer education issue and an ethical one.

“The reality is, if you’re paying under $5 for a coffee, somewhere along the line someone isn’t being paid properly. That’s something we try to educate both our staff and our customers on,” she said.

Starbucks update

Braeden Lord, CEO of Starbucks Australia, delivered the symposium’s keynote address, outlining the brand’s trajectory in one of the world’s most mature coffee markets.

From its Australian debut more than 25 years ago, Starbucks has grown to 94 locations nationwide, navigating a market widely regarded as among the most discerning globally.

Lord highlighted the company’s evolving approach to store formats, with an increasing emphasis on drive-through locations as a key growth channel, alongside traditional café environments tailored to local communities.

Central to the strategy is what he described as a return to the brand’s core identity – a “getting back to Starbucks” philosophy focused on being the world’s best customer service company, remaining visible, relevant and loved in every market, and reinforcing its role as a community coffee house.

The symposium wrapped with a four-strong panel.

Kopi Kenangan Managing Director Australia, Winnie Nawei, University of Melbourne Academic in the Faculty of Sciences, Sonja Needs, Founder and CEO of ONA Coffee, Project Origin, and Nucleus Coffee Tools, Sasa Sestic, and Co-Founder of Dak Coffee Roasters, Louis-Philippe Boucher presented insights on the global influences changing Australia’s coffee industry.

Read more in-depth coverage of the 2026 GCR Leaders Symposium in the June edition of BeanScene.