Timelapse of mural by Stephen Templer on the outside of Havana Coffee Work's new Auckland roastery and espresso bar. Video / Lion
Beverage giant Lion has invested $2 million to set up an Auckland coffee roastery and espresso bar as it continues to expand its business outside of alcoholic beverages.
Havana Coffee Works, which has been owned by Lion Nathan since 2018, this morning opened its first coffee roastery and cafe inParnell. The hospitality and production site is double the size of the Wellington-born coffee brand's roastery and cafe lounge in the capital and will enable the company to grow its wholesale and grocery business.
Currently, Havana produces 12 tonnes of coffee per week - the equivalent of 25 million espressos each year. The additional site will allow the brand to increase its production to 20 tonnes per week or around 50 million espressos annually.
The almost 800sq m St Georges Bay Rd venue will employ 19 staff and has an in-built training lab, office spaces and a dispatch floor. As well as a hospitality venue, the site will service its nationwide supermarket production and distribution as well as to local cafe businesses Streetwise and Lucky cafe businesses.
Havana was founded in 1989 in Cuba St with Havana Midnight Espresso by Geoff Marsland. The Art Deco Wellington roastery and coffee lounge HQ on Wellington's Tory Street has been in business for 13 years.
Outside Havana's new roastery and espresso bar in Auckland's Parnell. Photo / Supplied
Havana Coffee Works general manager Lee Brown said the coffee brand had been looking for additional production capacity, which is why it decided to acquire a second venue.
The Parnell roastery and espresso bar paid homage to the Wellington location, she said.
"Havana's Wellington HQ remains iconic, but with limited space, capital investment in a second location was the logical decision. The new site enables us to significantly increase production capacity to meet growing demand. Having a physical presence in Auckland also improves our ability to be able to support, train and service a wider range of customers in more locations, as well as mitigate risk which has become ever-more critical these past two years," Brown said.
Lee Brown, general manager of Havana Coffee Works. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand's coffee market was growing and the love of coffee had remained strong through the pandemic despite operators facing challenges, Brown said
New Zealand consumes approximately 10,700 tonnes of coffee beans per year, spread across categories ranging from instant coffee to café espressos.
"Coffee is a market that has been growing for Lion. Lion is all about drinking occasions and sociability and coffee is one of those elements of that. For us [Havana] what we want to do is to be able to support the growth of cafe customers in Auckland and the upper North Island, where we haven't had a huge presence.
"We want to bring more coffee to the upper North Island."
Brown said the Parnell roastery and espresso bar would enable the business to be "futureproofed for growth".
Havana also sells its product direct to consumers online, in addition to supermarkets and cafes throughout the country. The business is run independently from parent company Lion.
In recent years Lion acquired a string of beverage businesses outside the alcoholic beverage category. It previously owned kombucha, soft drink, iced tea and coffee brands, including Teza, GoodBuzz Kombucha, Mac's Soda, Hopt and sparkling water start-up Vista, however, it now only owns Mac's Soda and a 25 per cent stake in GoodBuzz Kombucha.
