By Keri Algar
SYDNEY, NSW: A few years ago Caruso, national retail sales manager for Map Coffee, met with the man responsible for bringing the first fully automatic coffee machine to the international market, the founder of Saeco International, Sergio Zapella.
Caruso describes Zapella as a “visionary man” and one of the many outcomes from that meeting, aside from an inspired Caruso, is the recently formed partnership with Zapella’s new company Caffitaly to produce coffee capsules for Map Coffee.
“Map is offering Australian’s Italian roasted espresso coffee in a capsule that has been tailored especially to the Australian market,” he said.
Each capsule contains 8 grams of coffee, the most generous of any capsule on the market, according to Caruso. And at 65 cents a capsule he also thinks it’s the best value.
“We are very excited to enter the portioned control segment here in Australia,” said Caruso, as he introduced the new Bella machine (RRP $299), which is produced alongside the capsules. Though the Bella has different guises around the world, a new machine is currently being developed specifically for the milk-with-coffee-drinking culture of Australia.
Caruso said that as a relatively young company, Map Coffee is flexible enough to transition with trends, is not set in its ways, and is ambitious.
“Whilst the demand for roast to ground coffee continues to grow and the consumption of instant coffee declines, more Australian’s than ever before are now opting to purchase a capsule machine due to its affordability, ease of use and the exceptional quality of espresso it’s able to produce.
“Further still, our capsules will be available through all electrical chains ranging Map Coffee capsule machines allowing retailers to profit from the ongoing sale of the capsule itself and the opportunity for repeat business and future sales.”
The Bella machine retails at Harvey Norman and will move into The Good Guys before Christmas.
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