Andrew joined the Padre Coffee team in 2016 and has excelled in a number of roles since. Hired to manage the now defunct Padre Coffee Royal Arcade, he came to us as a passionate coffee enthusiast with a lot of knowledge to share. A qualified chef who worked in kitchens for over a decade whilst discovering his interest in coffee, he has also dabbled in exercise physiology.
When the Royal Arcade store was sold, Andrew was hired as the Office Manager for Melbourne HQ and after a couple of years, transitioned into the role of Sales Manager. It’s a role that suits Andrew’s interests and abilities well as it marries his passion for specialty coffee and product development with his keen talent for creating mutually beneficial deals and his love of reporting.
Known around the office as our unofficial resident food scientist, he can often be found developing recipes, creating new products and saying “yes” to, well, pretty much everything! Andrew is also the founder and inventor of the DripLab Cold Drip system, which you can purchase right here at Padre Coffee.
Andrew is passionate about health and fitness, very handy with a power tool and, on weekends, can be found travelling the country with his fiancee Victoria in their camper van. Whilst full of tenacity, Andrew is a gentle and sensitive soul, a big fan of cuddles and the go-to guy to get things done.
What’s the most exciting thing you’re working on?
One of the huge and exciting projects this year for team sales is to focus on interstate expansion. We’re really keen to get some more incredible partners in states outside our bases in Victoria and Queensland. We know that to do this well, we need to do it responsibly and be able to ensure that we can support and service those customers the same way we do for our more local customers.
We’ve already had lots of interest from South Australia and Western Australia, and particularly in Tassie where we have an awesome partner, Sash Coffee, who have just opened their second location. We’re so keen to be able to travel interstate this coming year and host some really cool events and spend time with some really cool people.
What we look for in wholesale partners is a high level of engagement, a passion for quality and a high level of integrity. We’ve found that value alignment is a huge part of what makes a relationship mutually beneficial and long lasting. I’m really excited to onboard more incredible customers this year.
What’s your biggest professional achievement to date?
My biggest achievement so far would have to be the development of the sales team and the continued expansion of our wholesale offering. I’m really driven to create a wholesale offering that remains current and adaptable. The team and I are focussed on being as accessible as possible to an ever-broadening range of customers.
As people learn a little bit more about specialty coffee and there’s a growing focus on sustainability and ethical business practices, we’re finding a lot of customers trying to transition out of commodity style coffee and into specialty. I’ve worked really hard to put together an offering that supports these customers to achieve this.
At the same time, we absolutely remain true to our exclusively specialty grade coffee offering and we’re always adding new products to our range of accessory and retail products. We’re also committed to continuing to improve our educational and training offering and we’re always testing and trialling new pieces of equipment so that we can continue to support our customers in the best way possible and give them the best advice.
What three words would you use to describe your role?
Innovative - Something I’m good at and also really enjoy is looking for ways to improve systems and processes so our team can operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. When we are operating in the best way we can, our customers really benefit from that.
I also really love R&D and product development, and this keeps me in a constant creative headspace.
Engaging -I think one of the coolest things about working for Padre is that, while we’re each responsible for one area of work, we’re really encouraged to contribute across the board. This makes everyone’s jobs full of variety, and this really keeps me engaged. I might be on the forklift, developing a recipe for one of our coffees, or meeting a potential customer, all in the same day.
Rewarding -It’s so rewarding to be able to help our wholesale partners achieve their goals, from getting their dream fit out, improving the quality of their coffee offering through to training and educating their staff. If you have incredible people, and then you add quality equipment and exceptional coffee, you really have a recipe for success.
It’s also been really rewarding to see how well the sales team is performing, and how happy and engaged they are.
Padre Coffee acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their continued connections to land, sea and community.
We pay our respect to Elders past, present and future, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
