MICE announce Product Innovation Award finalists for 2020/21

Among the events scheduled for the Melbourne International Coffee Expo the Product Innovation Awards gives exhibitors a chance to showcase their newest products.

The Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) showcases everything the Australian coffee industry has to offer, from manufacturing to the point of sale.

MICE is considered one of the leading events of its type across the Asia Pacific, routinely attracting more than 10,000 attendees from across the coffee industry. Bringing together café owners, roasters, equipment manufacturers, service suppliers and more.

“We already knew Australia was a renowned coffee destination, and now we have the chance to share our coffee culture with a global audience,” said MICE show director Lauren Winterbottom.

The Product Innovation Awards is designed as an avenue for exhibitors to demonstrate the newest product innovations available to the market.

The finalists for the 2020/21 awards were recently announced for each of the three categories.

Ancillary electrical equipment

In the category of Ancillary Electrical Equipment, Simonelli Group/DaVinci, a company that develops high-performance, innovative, and sustainable machines has been nominated for the Helix flow coffee temperature system.

Helix is the result of a three-year collaboration.

It’s designed to enable baristas to make and develop their own beverage syrups in store, increasing creativity and creating new beverage limited time offers (LTO) to the store without having to use an additional syrup.

The helix machine also delivers a sustainability message for the customer by reducing the plastic consumption of the store.

The Barista Group Co, a specialist in coffee machinery, was nominated for the Markibar IZAGA coffee grinder, which comes with an isolated grinding chamber for smarter ventilation higher performance.

The IZAGA is purpose built for speed and consistency with two operating modes that deliver instant doses, allowing baristas more time to continue the workflow elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Barista Technology Australia was nominated for its flow coffee telemetry system, which creates a more accurate process for consistent quality, increased value, and sustainable propositions.

The product has real time gauges and an analytics dashboard with simple integration, real-time capture and wi-fi capabilities.

Coffee Accessories

For the category of Coffee Accessories, JOCO Cups, a company that creates innovative reusable drinking cups, has been nominated for the JOCO Aroma Lid while Keep Cups, another sustainable drinking vessel company, has been nominated for the new KeepCup Thermal product.

Rounding out the finalists for Coffee Accessories is Made by Fressko, which also manufactures sustainable and reusable cups and flasks, has been nominated for its new Fressko leather sleeve product.

Coffee Preparation Equipment

In the final category, Coffee Preparation Equipment, coffee machine manufacturers Franke Kaffeemaschinen Ag/Franke Coffee Systems was nominated for its Speciality Beverage Station (SB1200), which promises advanced modularity.

Some of the key functions of the SB1200 include IndividualMilk technology, an accounting system for various payment methods and a fully automatic cleaning process.

Franke Coffee Systems will be in competition with cold brew system specialist Toddy LLC, who is nominated for its Cold Brew Cupping kit, which boasts single-use, compostable filters rather than the standard metal variety.

Finally, Disave Espresso Equipment Suppliers, experts in coffee equipment, received its nomination for the new ONE by Crem coffee machine, a new product to the market that boasts an array of features.

ONE by Crem has high-performance, quality control off the back of PID link boilers, a removable 1.8l water tank and a smart-tech drip tray. All four models that are available to the market use dual pressure gauges on top of quality control.

The announcement comes after MICE organisers were forced to make the difficult decision to cancel the 2021 event after a concerning spike in local COVID-19 cases.

“We were devastated that we couldn’t proceed with our plans as we had hopes,” said Winterbottom.

“After the past 18 months, we wanted nothing more than to get back to business and bring the industry together again. While expo plans have been delayed, we know that next year will be a huge celebration of the world coffee community coming together after three years apart.”

MICE is the largest dedicated coffee show in the Southern Hemisphere where more than 145 exhibitors descend on the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, demonstrating speciality coffee, technology, and trends.

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