Veneziano partners with All Things Equal

Veneziano Coffee Roasters has partnered All Things Equal to supply the social enterprise’s café in Balaclava, Melbourne, with its coffee.

The social enterprise aims to create equal employment opportunities for those with disabilities. With the support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), it funds a team of staff with a background in both hospitality and disability support to work at its café.

“We’ve been open for about three and a half years. In that time, our impact has been creating award-wage employment for 28 people with disabilities. We paid over $360,000 in award wages and we’ve also seen four people transition into open employment,” says All Things Equal CEO Jess Colgan.

“Historically, people with disabilities haven’t been paid award wages in work. There has also been a history of people with disabilities being placed in back-of-house roles or behind the scenes.”

As part of the partnership, the café now features Veneziano Coffee Roasters’ Elevate roast as its house blend. The coffee has a medium body and delivers notes of milk chocolate, cashews, and spice, with a honey finish.

“We want people to just come because they enjoy good coffee and good food. Partnering with Veneziano means we can offer incredible coffee that meets Melbourne’s demand for great coffee,” says Jess.

According to the enterprise, it was essential to install professional coffee equipment that was safe to use while also enabling staff to craft a good cup of coffee. The café uses La Marzocco’s Wally Milk automatic milk steamer and the team say the hands-free operation has helped to remove the risk of burns. It also uses the Mahlkönig E65 Grind by Weight grinder to assist in delivering consistent coffee doses for espresso.

“Veneziano has always been a leader in the specialty coffee industry, and we’ve always taken pride in our training and standards. One thing we really wanted to do was remove as many barriers as possible and safety risks behind the machine to make sure that making coffee is accessible to everyone that works here,” says Nomad Coffee Group CEO Craig Dickson.

“As the father of a daughter with special needs, this is close to my heart. It’s great to be able to support this cause by donating coffee and using our industry partners. A big shout out to La Marzocco and Brewtech for coming to the party here.”

To continue to create more opportunities for those with disabilities, the social enterprise is planning to open another café in Melbourne.

“We’ve got a waitlist of 84 people desperate to get into their first hired job and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. We have multiple people contacting us every week looking for work. The future is growing our catering services to both corporates and the community, providing us with more consistent and high-level revenue and extending our reach across Melbourne, which is really exciting,” says Jess.

“In the next year, we hope to open a second café in another location. This will allow us to build more community and get more people into jobs.”

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