Mel Caia started working in her family’s café at a young age - probably too young, by her own admission. But young Mel Caia loved it.

After a decade or so she took a break from the industry and started work as a coffee and gelato trainer at William Angliss Institute where she still teaches today.

And then, in 2006 she got accredited to judge coffee competitions and has since adjudicated on dozens of national and international competitions, including the World Barista Championships.

We’re very excited to welcome Melissa Caia to the Coffee Lab!

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S2E3 - Jack Eydlish initially trained as a pharmacist and has somehow ended up Joint General Manager of Maltra Foods, a proudly Australian-owned food and beverage contract manufacturing business.

Maltra started in the mid 90s when Jack’s dad fortuitously partnered in a business providing drinking chocolate and chai powders to cafes around St Kilda.

Today – 27 years later – Jack and his brother Roman run the business, which has over a hundred staff, manufactures thousands of products in Victoria and Queensland, and still caters to the café business but also partners with some of the world’s leading retail and food service businesses.

We’re very excited to welcome Jack Eydlish, Joint General Manager of Maltra Foods to the Coffee Lab!

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S2E2 - Just to the northwest of Noosa in Queensland, lies the small town of Gympie, population a bit over 50 thousand. It’s a far cry from the big, bustling, coffee metropolis that is Melbourne, population 5 million, some 2000km to the south. But that’s the journey today’s guest made, and the culture shock was real.

We’re very excited to welcome Andrew Baldry, General Manager of Coffee Wholesale at Degani Australia, to the Coffee Lab!

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S2E1 - When your dad’s a baker, his crazy hours mean you don’t get to see much of him as a kid. Which is why as soon as they could, Steve and Mike Plarre joined their dad at

Fast forward a few decades and one of them is now the CEO, the other is the General Manager of Production at Plarre Foods, more commonly known as Ferguson Plarre’s

We’re very excited to welcome Steve Plarre to the Coffee Lab!

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S1E6 - Nick Ferrara was born in Naples, Italy and studied engineering in Rome, before launching into a career in news publishing. He also worked with his mum in a not-for-profit aimed at dissuading young people from a life of organized crime, and at some point also started a wind farm with his mates.

Then, with no real knowledge of English, and having never been on a plane before, he packed up and moved to Australia – a gutsy move.

Today, he’s National Training Manager with one of the most recognizable names in coffee: Lavazza.

We’re very excited to welcome Nick Ferrara to the Coffee Lab.

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S1E5 - Peter Patisteas has seen Melbourne’s coffee culture unfold and mature from a front row seat. He grew up learning the art of coffee roasting – at the time, a very manual process – from his father and uncle, in the Griffiths Brothers roastery.

After a foray into investment banking in London in the late 90s, he decided to go straight to the source and see how coffee starts life, on the plantations of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. And after a year, he returned to Melbourne, to settle into the family business.

Today, if you ask him his job title, he’ll say something like “coffee roaster from sunny Mulgrave”, but he’s actually now co-director of Griffiths Brothers, along with his brother-in-law, Chris Togias.

While the words “coffee” and “technology” don’t always fit into the same sentence, they do for Peter. He’s passionate about refining and advancing the processes around coffee production, from crop to cup, while also doing as much as possible to look after the people involved, and the environment.

We’re very excited to welcome Peter Patisteas to the Coffee Lab.

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S1E4 - Alberto Schiavon was in Melbourne for the World Barista Championships, where for the first time, competitors did their thing using Barista Attitude machines.

The machines themselves are backed by the half-century pedigree of Astoria CMA, but they’re servicing a new customer – a barista, or café owner, or multinational chain that’s looking for something a little bit different, a little bit 21stcentury.

At the same time as they’re digitizing the coffee making process, Barista Attitude are working to reintroduce the humanity to coffee, with a focus on hospitality, and zoning in on the barista’s role in our daily lives.

We’re very excited to welcome Barista Attitude’s Sales Manager, Alberto Schiavon, to the Coffee Lab!

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S1E3 - Kamal Bengougam is a risk taker, but it’s risk for the sake of a good story, as much as it is for the payoff. He’s had a varied career including publishing, engineering, biotech, and he’s mashed all those together to land at the cutting edge of super-automated coffee at Eversys.

Now, super-automation is contentious. There are those who will argue that automating the coffee making process rips the soul from it but Kamal and Eversys disagree. And with the pandemic shaking the hospitality industry across the world, for Eversys the aftermath has presented enormous opportunity.

We’re very excited to welcome to the Coffee Lab Kamal Bengougam, Director of Business Development and Marketing at Eversys.

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S1E2 - As time passes, generational shifts occur – in families, in their businesses, the products they’ve created, and the communities they serve. Riding the waves of these generational shifts is challenging, particularly in migrant communities that still feel so connected to their homelands, but for whom identities and points of reference are constantly shifting and changing. Our guest today is Chris Togias, Co-Director of The OG Group, which includes Oasis Greek coffee. Today, we’re here at the Antipodes Festival, which is a huge Greek street festival that takes place in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD every year, and we’re here to talk about pulverized Greek coffee, which is facing a generational shift of its own. We’re very excited to welcome Chris Togias to the Coffee Lab!  Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S1E1 - From the espresso bars of Rome to the laneway cafes of Melbourne, La Marzocco is a globally recognized – and loved – brand. But long before he became their Managing Director here in Australia, Barry Moore was a devoted customer, placing hundreds of La Marzocco coffee machines in the businesses he worked in around the world. Then, the opportunity arose to head-up the business here in Australia, so here he is – growing and reshaping the brand, while also exploring what influence it can wield in the world.  We’re very excited to welcome Barry Moore, Managing Director of La Marzocco Australia, to the Coffee Lab!  Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.