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#19. Meet Geoffrey Michelmore, Techncial Director at AREMDE
80 Plays2 years ago
Are you a barista? Do you work with espresso machines?
Today, we have Geoffrey Michelmore on our podcast, and we talked about his engineering career, his favourite coffee, and AREMDE espresso machines. Geoff also shared his tips.
At I'M NOT A BARISTA, we want to connect people behind the cup, especially between baristas and coffee consumers, this is where we found AREMDE and us have so much in common.
Every problem is also a window of opportunity. You just have to open it up. And that’s what AREMDE did. They literally designed a hole in the wall. Created less machine and more experience. So the connection between the customer and the coffee master – as we like to call true baristas – is optimized to the max.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. We hope their stories inspire you because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, everyone. My name is Miki, the host of Amnabarsa podcast. For this episode, we have a special guest, Jeffrey Michael Moore. And Jeffrey is the engineer behind the brand RMD Espresso machine. As you may know, their latest coffee machine, Stylus One, and their previous model, Nestus One. At Amnabarsa, we're always curious about the people behind the cup. So today we interviewed Jeff.
Jeffrey's Engineering Journey and Daily Life
00:00:55
Speaker
And then we would like to know what is life to be like engineer and what coffee does he like. Also, how they design and develop their very unique espresso machine. Of course, we would like to hear more tips from the professional. Hello, Jeff. How are you today? It's been a good day. A lot of productive things happening within the business. So I started my morning this morning heading out to the office, which is really close to my home. So
00:01:24
Speaker
I've been here most of the day working with inventory and production on machines heading out and also some new equipment that we're finishing up looking at for the future.
00:01:38
Speaker
It says like your day is pretty busy. You must have a lot of tasks on your calendar. Before we talk about your engineering career, tell us more about who you are. What kind of person you are in real life? Well, for myself, I'm the kind of person that really I like to use my hands. And so we renovate the house we live in.
00:02:02
Speaker
I've grown up in a family where we've continually been building cars or doing other things, sort of hands-on projects. I've got three lovely kids from 12 up to 22 and so they keep you busy doing different things. And yeah, I've got a couple of businesses that I work within that take up the rest of my time. For myself personally, right now I don't have a lot of hobbies that I'm sort of into because I'm renovated.
00:02:33
Speaker
So I'm hoping to re-pitch my life in a couple of months' time or maybe six months' time and get back on to what I like to do, which is really to do with motors, so cars and off-road, that sort of stuff.
Innovations in Espresso Machine Design
00:02:46
Speaker
The world I live in is engineering, so developing commercial products, equipment from the ground up, so solving problems, so engineering and problem-solver.
00:03:02
Speaker
That's kind of where I sit in my world. I like to take on projects that seem like they might not be the norm or maybe the easiest part and solve the problem and bring that back into my life. And I've been very fortunate that I've got to work with a lot of great people then commercialize some of these projects. And now I work within those businesses that manufacture those different products and ship them worldwide.
00:03:35
Speaker
area of Brisbane. So obviously you're doing a lot of things every day and you play different roles, but today we would like to hear more about the coffee machines you guys built. So Jeff, what projects have we been working on lately?
00:03:52
Speaker
Right now I've moved myself into development, so I'm back into working on our list of criteria of new machinery, of new products to push R&D to the next level. And we've managed to bring our newest product stylus through COVID.
00:04:12
Speaker
and out the other side, which was launched in September. So we now have two lovely espresso machines that we offer to the world. And these machines are developed with a Brewster in mind, actually. So why we develop our equipment is for improved function flow within cafe efficiencies to make, to improve the cafe's efficiencies to work in a manner which is more suitable to not just the Brewster, but also the
00:04:43
Speaker
the customer. The customer becomes really engaged in their morning coffee with the barista. They can watch the extraction, they can watch the emulation of milk, they can see the barista making their coffee which I think for me and what I've learned over the years it's a really awesome relationship that they form with the barista and their customer where the customer continually
00:05:05
Speaker
comes back to be a part of that theatre in the morning and this is the luxury of our machines. They bring this to life and the feedback we've had from baristas around the world using our machines are that their interaction with their customers is now changed so much that they couldn't see another machine that they'll be working on other than our machinery where you can put
00:05:33
Speaker
and have this interaction in the morning.
00:05:36
Speaker
As I remember, I saw your espresso machines about three, four years ago. And then I was like, wow, look at this. This is a very unique design because it is just completely different from traditional espresso machines. They are see-through, like there is a big, there is a big window so you can see what Barista is working on, on the other side of the bar. That's really amazing.
00:06:06
Speaker
I want to know what is the reason most of you guys to design such a machine and also what is the design philosophy? Love
Founding of RMD and Design Philosophy
00:06:16
Speaker
to, yes. So when we started RMD, and that's the company name, so RMD, that's A-R-E-M-D-E. So this business was started back under a consultancy for a need to, from one of our founders, Mathana, to bring something to the market to improve
00:06:37
Speaker
customers and their belief and that opening up the window to the customer to see how the coffee is being poured through a coffee machine would change the way that people view the way that they receive their coffee in the morning. And his idea was to actually develop a machine that had a hole in the middle of it. And this machine was under consultancy name and then become Nexus, which is now a proud Australian coffee machine manufactured here in Brisbane.
00:07:06
Speaker
RMD is an Australian company and it manufactures in Brisbane, develops in Brisbane, and we ship from Brisbane to the rest of the world. This machine, Nexus, was developed and brought to market in 2018. From there, we've now shipped into 26 countries. If you haven't seen our machine, it's
00:07:31
Speaker
They talk to me, and it's a big hole in the middle. It's been seen by many, many people across the world, but sometimes the name leaves them because RMD is a totally different name. This name was actually developed from the founders of the business. Myself, Graham Vanderdonk, who was a designer at the Netherlands, and Matana Rakhtan, who was out of Saudi Arabia.
00:07:57
Speaker
joined by Walter Amrick out of the Netherlands as well as our marketing manager. So our name is Dora Eiffron, our last name. And it was something which we're very proud of. We started, we did it this way because we wanted to be involved in the business as family men. We wanted to leave something I think that we're very proud of for our children.
00:08:19
Speaker
I really respect all the thoughts you put in there. I'm wondering how difficult it is to design a machine like this because, you know, there's a big empty space in the middle. Why not just to design a regular shape coffee machine? Yeah, look, working in the industry for 18 years, it's much easier to fit componentry into a standard square box on a bench. So this is something which you're right, is probably easier to actually do.
00:08:47
Speaker
But we wanted to achieve, and from our philosophy, we wanted to lead into new products from a design point of view, but also not forget that we must look at flow and also servicing, so managing modular servicing. So it was a challenge, but not everything is easy. So the challenge was to make sure that we stay true to the original design. We didn't change it very much.
00:09:16
Speaker
it sat on the bench very well and it actually hopefully adds to the cafe from the design aspect. So we think it's a piece of art that people get to enjoy. And second to that was also it had to be capable. So it had to be built strong and coming from the Australian coffee market, we have quite large cafes. And so the machine was built to handle large cafes. So the power in our machine is a true coffee.
00:09:48
Speaker
cafes around the world and some of these cafes are doing 100 to 120 kilos on a single machine and so we know it's true to its power and being from a service industry myself it's been made to be more
00:10:04
Speaker
So, installing the machine and servicing the machine is something which is not too difficult to do. Again, it's a different machine, so you have to understand how to get into the machine and make it easy. But we run online training and support with videos and we also do pre-COVID. We will also come out and train your technical team to monitor the machine.
00:10:25
Speaker
So we've had great success in all of the countries we've gone into. We've coupled with really great technical agencies that have easily managed installing and maintaining our
Future Plans and Market Challenges
00:10:34
Speaker
equipment. And we're proud to say that we have sold to 26 countries worldwide and we have some really great partners that continually support us and maintain our equipment. So among those 26 countries, which one is the biggest market?
00:10:54
Speaker
Right now Saudi Arabia, they love their coffee. They're heavy coffee drinkers and they understand what they're wanting from coffee equipment. And they really do make some spectacular cafes. I fall in love with the way that they actually do their cafes because they're very grand and they invest into their cafe so much. And yeah, definitely great to be a part of that industry and also Korea. So South Korea has been quite large for us and China.
00:11:23
Speaker
has been quite large for us. So the Korean market is very diverse and again, great partners in all of these markets make it easy for us to enter and then install our equipment. I want to know if you guys have any plans in the future entering home borrowing market like you guys can develop a smaller size espresso machine for home users. We have several designs.
00:11:48
Speaker
We haven't taken them past the prototype stage because the home market is a very different market. So understanding how to meet the expectations.
00:12:02
Speaker
just in regards to a beautiful design because we're very lucky we have a great designer that leaves us down that way. But understanding exactly the needs of the home market, so price point and also features that are hard to bring into a machine without going to a grand scale.
00:12:20
Speaker
We have a couple of different machines that we've prototyped, but none of them at this stage are ready for the domestic market at this point. We get asked all the time, by the way, so we have a list of a lot of people that would love to take our equipment home.
00:12:36
Speaker
Well, it's very exciting just to think about if we could have a smaller size of that machine and then I can put it somewhere in the kitchen, close to the window. And most importantly, it doesn't block any sunshine. So that's so amazing and beautiful. Okay. So let's talk about coffee. What is your favorite coffee? Um, so myself, I just drink a simple long black. So, um, you know,
00:13:04
Speaker
For me, it's my daily. It gets me going. I'm a massive... Well, it's surprising to know that you're into long black instead of espresso because you designed and developed espresso machines. I drink espresso, but...
00:13:23
Speaker
in the coffee market, you can drink too much. I probably don't enjoy coffee in my office, which is where I am 99% of the time, as much as I do when I go out to drink coffee and get spoiled by someone I know, a colleague who owns a cafe or a roaster who's roasting some amazing coffee. At that stage, I drink whatever is available because I enjoy them showing me what they have to offer. I drink all different types of coffee, but my daily coffee is just a long black.
00:13:52
Speaker
Long black. So what is your fairy coffee beans? My gross, what we're drinking right now is actually from a local roaster down on the Gold Coast. And his name is Yili. And so it's called Roast by Yili. But I have, I'm very lucky. I've got, I sort of talk to many roasters and in the local Brisbane area, we work with Toby's estate, we work with
00:14:22
Speaker
with all of these great broasters that are around the area. So yeah I got it too many to name but I get a bit spoiled when they come by. I guess you never run off good coffee to drink. I want to ask you before you joined RMD what did you do? What kind of products or projects did you normally do? So before I joined
00:14:47
Speaker
R&D. I worked with my own business which was called Brewbar and then I have a service business called Brew Solutions and I basically earned my stripes within a large coffee company which is owned by Suntory. So called CeraVos at the time and I worked in the technical arm of that called Espresso Mechanics. So
00:15:10
Speaker
I sort of I worked within that business for 14 years and so I got to know a lot about coffee equipment in that time and So I've been in coffee equipment now. I think on 18 or 19 years So you have working in a coffee industry for almost two decades. That's quite a long time Can I ask what did you do before that?
00:15:34
Speaker
Before that, I was in actually technical in filling machines to do laser printers, toners, inks, this industry, which was just out of school. So I got to travel around and be a part of that industry, which was really great, which was about reusing and recycling toners and inks and they're filling them rather than just buying new ones. All right, I will stop asking you what did you do before that?
00:16:04
Speaker
Let's talk about the present time. As we know already, you're a busy man. So how do you plan your day? Yeah, it's planned. So I have pretty, I have
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's a planned day with some unplanned parts. So I come in with some primary tasks that I must get into and go in and either be in production or in development at this point in time. But running a business, you're also involved in other sides, the administration side, the sales side,
00:16:43
Speaker
I guess I'm still running a business but right now I'm in development so I'm tackling new innovations, looking at new components or developing new components and looking at pushing new
00:17:02
Speaker
baristas and key cafe owners around Brisbane that we discuss our new features with and share and they give us feedback so we're lucky to have that facility happening around Brisbane with some really great cafes and we're talking internationally or I talk internationally to our suppliers and our partners overseas and see what they're doing when it comes to supplying our new parts and if I'm in the sales side I'm talking to a
00:17:31
Speaker
our distributors. I offer support, technical and support in the markets to understand what's happening in different countries. So my day is very and a lot of it now is not directly within my hands which is nice and it's with my team and the team really push forward and see the vision and so I get to hear great success from the team and I also get to hear some of the pain points from the team as well.
00:17:56
Speaker
I guess your answer is a little bit different from what I expected. I always think engineer lifestyle will be you wake up, you go to the lab and stay in the basement for a whole day and go home and sleep.
00:18:13
Speaker
Well, I do that, but how much of that I do right now, it depends on the business. And we're going into Christmas period now. So we're talking about, you know, the next eight weeks, what are we going to do in the next eight weeks and part supply and shipping and all of that stuff as well.
Personal Interests and Sustainability Focus
00:18:29
Speaker
So being business only, you have a couple of things you juggle. And, you know, we have a general manager that looks after the business, but sometimes it's still in my hands as to what I need to do.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's for me, it's really enjoyable. I can say that coming to work is not it's not something hard to do. I really enjoy it. OK, since you mentioned Christmas, I live in the countries most of my life with the snow. So we celebrate Christmas with the snow. You know, that's kind of like the movie style. Chris, you tell us what is Christmas like there in Australia? How do you celebrate it? Difficult. Yeah, it's really difficult to ski on the grass and the dirt. So we don't do much of that.
00:19:14
Speaker
I've never had a white Christmas, so it's something I would like to take the family to do. Enjoy snow at Christmas time, but basically everything you would do in your summer. So we do a lot of barbecue, we do swimming, a lot of outside activities, a lot of food, a lot of eating with family and enjoying each other's time. So Christmas is still, I guess, the same, but we just don't make many snowmen.
00:19:39
Speaker
I hope soon you can try the real white Christmas, you know, with a lot of snow. Don't be a very interesting experience for you guys. So we talk about your job. We talk about your life as an engineer. And what did you do before? What did you do before that? So let's talk about future. I have a strange question here. I want to ask you if you leave your company right now, what would you do next?
00:20:08
Speaker
Have you ever thought about it? That's a great question. I mean, for myself, I've always been able to make a decision about where I head in life. And I've got two theories on it. So two things that potentially I think would fill my time. And they both would be starting probably in business. And I'm really into, right now, electronic vehicles and electronic electricity, solar, this kind of thing.
00:20:47
Speaker
That really for me is I look into that and I enjoy understanding that technology. So that's sort of one direction that I think I could see myself going into because I'm really into cars and actually into off-roading. So there's not really an electric scene that I'm following in off-roading right now. So that would be interesting. But right now a big interest of mine and also some of my colleagues are that sustainability, so the circular economy.
00:21:16
Speaker
And I think this is really important and it's a direction that we're pushing R&D and into in my other businesses into, which is minimizing our footprint, minimizing our waste that goes into the ground and actually spending money and time to change our processes. So I think for me, I'll be really happy to leave something behind.
00:21:37
Speaker
where I made a difference in the way that we treat our waste from diversifying up to 95 to 100% or more of our waste from going into landfill and being reused and being a part of an economy that buy and sell.
00:21:56
Speaker
get put in the ground and it means a lot to me and also the businesses I'm in that we improve the way that we design our products and also the way that we treat our waste and so right now our products when we finish designing them or while we're designing them sorry we choose materials that can be recycled such as metal
00:22:17
Speaker
We don't use a lot of plastics. And even to our packaging, we make sure that our packaging is recyclable. So we use wooden crates rather than too much plastic. This sort of thing matters. And I guess if I was not to be within the business I'm in now, I would like to really work within a sustainable business, something contributing to the circular economy. We often hear that engineers are the one who change the world. What do you think about that?
00:22:44
Speaker
I think young people are actually changing the world. I think they're pushing so much harder than anybody else. I mean, I do think things were easier back then.
00:22:56
Speaker
not easy, not easier, but there was less saturation and less international discussion around certain new innovations that were coming to life and so there was less competition in that field where now if something new happens it can be broadcast internationally really quickly and therefore it can be, you can end up working in parallel with somebody on the other side of the world that had a similar idea and now
00:23:27
Speaker
There definitely is, I think young people can aim for the stars, but I do think it's quite a competitive world, the way that we broadcast what we're doing. As a new brand in the coffee industry and you guys want to bring more innovation, to bring new design to the existing customers and compete with the other established brands, I want to know what has been the most challenging part for you guys?
RMD's Market Position and Future Goals
00:23:57
Speaker
It was that, you know, we're so different and we are in a country that isn't known for us building coffee equipment. So, you know, we're known for some great coffee and that's really, I'm lucky that I've grown up in Australia where we have some really amazing coffee companies and baristas that have really pushed the envelope when it comes to coffee. And so I've learned a lot from those people over the years and listened and learned from that point of
00:24:26
Speaker
heavily and help me understand the market. So yeah breaking into a market when you're new and different yeah trust me it's really difficult you need you even need this this amazing light bulb go off for many people or you need
00:24:46
Speaker
that we've had that luxury that not luxury we've had that design aspect from our machine which has been loved and taken on board by so many great people worldwide that we've entered those markets for that reason that they understand what we're trying to achieve and they've partnered with us to support our brand and understand that we are a new company and that we are growing and they've been there for the tough times and also now the good times as we bring the new product out to the market.
00:25:18
Speaker
How do you position your brand in the current coffee market? Let's say we have traditional Italian brands, American brands and new emerging brands from Korea and China. We are in a higher price point being an Australian business because the Australian economy
00:25:38
Speaker
and costs of labor, and also we are a long way away from everybody else. So even transport costs, then it pays on costs of goods. But we tried to design our products to be made in a way, and especially stylus, our new product. It was designed from a manufacturing point of view as well. So we had, firstly, the feedback from the market, which was price point, and also customization.
00:26:07
Speaker
And from our backend to meet these two requests from our market, we actually designed it from a manufacturing point up to reduce manufacturing time and also manufacturing costs, which we could then pass back to the market to meet that price point that was requested. So we really understood where we're going with this machine and we didn't compromise on quality. So our new machine is still built on the same
00:26:36
Speaker
platform as a starter, so quality of parts engineering is all still there. What we've done is improved our back-end manufacturing process to allow us to deliver the machine to the market at a smarter price point, and this is going to benefit us, I think, as we move across the world. We're actually just entering the American and Canadian market right now, so it's something new for us.
00:26:59
Speaker
So in the end, I want to know, is there anything you would like to share from your professional career or your personal experience with the audience today? I think you've got to look long term. I think many people expect things to happen very quickly and overnight. And I'm not sure if this is the way everybody sees it, but I do feel from having children as well that they do aim for the stars, but sometimes
00:27:30
Speaker
overnight, they don't even want to understand how to achieve that or they can't bed down with the hard times to get to what they want to achieve. And so I think nothing comes easy and it takes a lot of hard work to achieve what you want. And you just have to focus and push up, not give up. And education, you know, you've really got to understand where you're heading and take that on board. So if you want to do something, you need to
00:27:57
Speaker
the hard yards to to make it a bit. Look I don't have any any other questions prepared I really like to just do this as a candid discussion and it's been great to speak to you on Mickey it's been easy so look um look I guess where I'm at right now within the business um I consider myself fortunate it's been hard work but I've got great mentors and partners within my business and so I think within business if you can succeed uh or not succeed if you can
00:28:30
Speaker
and you can draw on their knowledge and their skillset, their expertise. And I think in life, it's the same sort of thing as who you surround yourself with. And that's where you get your support from.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
00:28:41
Speaker
So yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today.
00:28:45
Speaker
Thank you, Jeff. Thank you so much for taking the time and talk about your career and sharing your experiences and your tips. I can now wait to see more coffee shops around the world start using your coffee machines. And I truly believe that improving the communication between customers and baristas is the best solution to solve so many problems in the coffee world. Thank you for sharing. Anytime. Thank you very much.
00:29:13
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world. You're a part of our global community where we celebrate baristas and their craft in everything that we do.