Three mates and a gap in the market
In 2016, three friends in Western Australia’s South West spotted something missing. Specialty coffee was booming in Perth, but three hours down south there wasn’t much happening when it came to coffee.
James Tischhauser, Craig Woods and Isaac Kara decided to do something about it. James brought a background in marketing, Craig had a good handle on business and Isaac was the guy who knew a thing or two about roasting. They set out with a simple ambition: to bring non-pretentious, delicious coffee to their own community.
They resisted the urge to give the business a trendy name. A shortlist of hipster options was drawn up and then binned pretty fast after they realised they didn’t need one. They all live in the region, and they liked the idea that in time, it might come to stand for something more than the surf and wine. Margaret River Roasting Co. was born.
From an idea to cult following
A decade on, the bet (and hard work) has well and truly paid off. MRRC now supplies around 150 cafes across the South West, Perth and wider WA, along with hotels, restaurants, IGAs and specialty retailers. Their on-site cafe at Vasse has built something close to a cult following, with people travelling from far and wide to enjoy the coffee and food, as well as buy their beans direct.
It hasn’t been a leisurely journey, though. Neither founder had run anything at this scale before, and the growth came fast.
“We went through such a rapid growth period from year one to year eight that the whole time we were just adapting. Not having time to sit and mull things over has been kind of cool, because it forces your hand a little bit,” says James.
From their roastery in Vasse, today the team roasts beans from eight to ten different countries. They look for unique coffees that celebrate the regions they come from, and where they can, they buy the same coffees year after year, supporting the same families at origin while giving customers the joy of seeing favourites return each season.
But ask the founders what sets them apart in a crowded market and they’ll talk about people. The team is built to feel like a family, and the goal has never been just to sell coffee but to grow a community of enthusiasts who appreciate the craft. That ethos has earned them a South West Business Excellence Award for community engagement, a state finalist recognition for promoting sustainability and a place as Telstra Business Awards state finalists.
A partnership six years in the making
A business this deliberate about its decisions was never going to settle when it came to packaging. Around six years ago, with compostable materials emerging and plastic linings looking increasingly out of step with their values, MRRC started looking for a better way to package their coffee.
“We wanted to make a change with the packaging and the cups we were using. We started chatting with EcoBarista and, to be honest, we haven’t really looked back since. It’s been an incredible relationship. Our whole ethos is good coffee for good people, and Russ is absolutely one of the good people.”
For us, that partnership started the way it always does: understanding how their roastery business runs, what their products are, the equipment they’re using and their volumes. Because a bag has to deliver on many fronts. It has to move through a working roastery efficiently, from the filling station to the sealer to the courier box, hundreds of times a day. Get the bag right and everything downstream gets easier.
The partnership included launching a limited edition product that was an Australian grown coffee called Yara Yarkiny. The artwork for the bags was detailed so the bar was high.
“The artwork we had for the bags was pretty intricate, and we were able to work with EcoBarista to come up with a fantastic looking product. They helped us through it every step of the way.”
Streamlining the packing bench
Like a lot of roasters, the team had been labelling plain bags by hand, which is a great solution when you’re starting out and the volumes are smaller. But once volumes increase, especially with a 150 strong cafe network, that step adds considerable time and resource.
MRRC are also very deliberate about building their brand, and they knew a custom bag would help elevate the product. So we worked with them to design and print a bag that reflected not just where they were as a brand then and there, but where they wanted to be.
Building sustainably
The second change was invisible from the outside. Their old bags contained a layer of aluminium. It’s common in coffee packaging because it does a good job of keeping oxygen, light and moisture away from the beans, but it turns a bag into a problem once it’s empty, because mixed layers of foil and plastic are notoriously difficult to deal with at the end of life.
Working together, we designed a bag with modern high-barrier materials that protect coffee just as well without the foil. The new structure keeps MRRC’s beans fresh while leaving behind a simpler material with a better story once the bag is finished with.
“Everything we’ve ever done to integrate sustainability into packaging, it’s been, Russ, we want to do this. And they’ve gone, yep, we’ve got that solution, give me a week.”
Partnerships that fill your cup
Packaging involves real trade-offs between barrier performance, materials, print, format and cost, and the right answer depends entirely on how your business runs.
Our job is to sit down with coffee businesses, understand the operation from the inside, and navigate those trade-offs until the packaging works in with the business. Or as the MRRC founders put it:
“It’s the same as it is for life, really. Find suppliers, relationships, customers or staff that fill your cup rather than empty it. And for us, EcoBarista does that.”
If you’re weighing up a change of your own, whether that’s ditching the stickers or rethinking your materials entirely, we’d love to talk it through. Reach out to our team and let’s start the conversation.
