Jura held its annual conference in Melbourne this week with 150 attendees including staff, dealers, distributors, service partners and retail partners from around Australia, as well as New Zealand, Japan, and China.
There was also special guests from Jura headquarters in Switzerland including global CEO, Emmanuel Probst, head of international business for Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Americas, Evelyn Fink, international service support manager, Reto Marbach and area manager, Larissa Göde.
The conference was an opportunity for retailers to hear about Jura’s innovations including three new coffee machines, new accessories, the latest iteration of the Jura Operating Experience (J.O.E.) app and new online premium POS concept, as well as a fireside chat with Emmanuel Probst. The event concluded with a formal gala evening and celebration of Jura’s 15-year anniversary in Australia.
“Our conference theme for this year is ‘Innovations of the future’. At Jura, we believe in continuous improvement and once again, our products take another leap forward in coffee quality, design and ease of use,” Jura Australia managing director, George Liakatos told attendees.
“Our brand values of innovation, Swiss engineering, uncompromising quality, excellence and longevity are part of our DNA and will be proudly on show during the conference. Our purpose like our products is simple, intuitive to understand and exemplifies what we stand for – best coffee quality, excellent design and intuitive operation.
“During the pandemic, demand for household goods was met with a sense of urgency and need to improve coffee quality in the home environment. In 2022, Jura Australia saw a consolidated increase in unit sales of over 40% compared to 2019. Our share of premium machine sales increased at an even higher rate led by the Z10 – our best ever launch in late 2021 – which exceeded all of our expectations.
“Our best performing model in unit terms is the E8 which has solidified our position in the mid-segment. However, our second best performing model in unit terms if the Z10, which is significant, notwithstanding that the price tag is over $4,000.
“In June 2022 at our global sales conference, Jura Australia was recognised as the ‘king’ of premium sales with the highest share of premium sales of any other Jura affiliate around the world at just over 40% – machines with a retail value of more than $3,000.
“There is some angst among our industry as we approach uncertain times and economic headwinds. We regularly track purchase intention for coffee machines and we aren’t seeing any cause for alarm. In our most recent survey in December 2022, four in 10 Australians said they are intending to buy a coffee machine in the next 12 to 18 months – much higher than the number we recorded 12 months prior. This gives us a strong indication that demand is not wavering, it’s still there when an opportunity presents itself.”
Feature image: Emmanuel Probst, Evelyn Fink and George Liakatos.