Sovda interviews Jon Allen of Onyx Coffee Lab on sustainability, optical sorting, and the process behind Onyx's renowned coffee quality.
Sovda Jon Allen Interview v1
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:00:00] Hey there! This is Nicholas Flatoff. Thanks for joining us at the Sovda podcast.
I'm here with a pretty special guest. We're stoked to be chatting with him today. And that's Jon Allen of Onyx. Thanks so much for joining us today, John. I hope you're having a good one down there.
Jon Allen: [00:00:17] Hey, thanks for having me!
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:00:18] Probably anyone listening to the podcast is aware of who you are and Onyx coffee and the great coffee, great product, great packaging. You guys nailed it on interior design. I mean, it's one of those companies that we're stoked to be partnered with.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:00:31] This was a little bit before my start time with Sovda and maybe I was just doing contract installs at the time, but you were one of our earliest early adopters, you know, really jumping on the bandwagon pretty quick on getting the Pearl implemented. I'm curious: were you guys doing hand-sorting prior to the Pearl implementation, or was that an addition to the workflow at that point?
Jon Allen: [00:00:54] We were doing hand sorting as in, within the cooling tray itself, obviously de-stoning and things like that, but mainly taking our time within the cooling tray, which basically added about four minutes per batch for us, because we were letting a little out and then sorting again and then letting the little out and sort again and so forth. And obviously you're missing maybe some things here or there. And as far as like picking out my new color differences and things like that, that was not an option or imperceivable for us. I mean, quakers and defects are, and something like that is a little bit different to pick out, but. Slight color variations, you know, it's almost impossible.
And yeah, I don't know if we were the first to get it, but if, if we weren't the first, we were pretty close as I basically bugged Samuel until he came over and he came and installed it himself. It was a great experience and there's a lot of excitement at the time because they came in and helped us really lay out a lot of our roastery in general. My memories of it is that we were really struggling to get the loader from our basement up and basically... yeah, I'm talking to Samuel and he immediately goes and gets like six of our subcontractors who have no idea who he is. And he just starts giving orders. And for some reason they just start following the orders and he acts like it's normal. And then he disappears and I never see him again. And it's all hooked up. It's kind of a flash. It's great. I'm super appreciative of that.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:02:19] Samuel definitely knows... I mean, when you think about taking a product from philosophy to launch, and then you've got, you know we ship into pretty much any country and the logistics on it, you got to have someone who can take control and see the obvious solutions and, and rally people to implement them. And that's that Samuel a hundred percent that's his... he's born to do that. And the Pearl Mini wouldn't exist in the rest of the product line-up wouldn't exist without that drive. So it's... the energy that went into actually building a company and making it what it is today.
One of the things that's a more recent "hitting the nail right on the head" is we saw that you guys had joined us in the sustainability pledge over at SCI the Sustainable Coffee Institute.
And we're super excited about that program. We're super excited to see it grabbing some traction and... with your industry experience, maybe [give us] a little history and trajectory on some of the industry sustainability problems that you've run into and how you've seen either other parts of the industry shifting or what you've been able to do yourself to work towards sustainability.
Jon Allen: [00:03:28] For us, from an environmental standpoint, that's always been something that we've been pretty concerned with. And I think being in the industry and growing up from a barista in high school to running cafes now, I mean, we've, you know, the amount of waste I've generated is crazy, let alone what our industry has done. And so when you have sort of the ability to try to make some changes within that, I think we all should take whatever we can to go forward.
I mean, you know, my wife is a co-founder with me - we live and breathe coffee. Our daughters were raised in the roastery, you know, one day maybe she'll want to take it over or maybe she won't, but regardless we want that industry to be there. I mean, coffee has given so much to us. We're so just obsessed with the people within it [that] I would hate to see it leave. And so I guess we try to hit it on every front we can. A big step for us was trying to get the roastery run on solar. That's been a goal of ours for almost five years now. And we hit that mark in 2020, and we're really, really excited about that. So that's, that was sort of a big milestone for us that we have been saving money and capital and sort of putting some aside to say like, Hey, one day, we're going to be able to pull the trigger on this. And then for better or for worse, COVID allowed that to actually happen just as prices drop and as a smaller roastery like us could afford to do something like that.
But we just take a look at anything, I guess, that we're trying to do or operating that and always trying to look through the lens or filter it in a way that says like, okay, this is great. What else could we be doing to make this better? And that can be from the sourcing side of the supply chain, all the way to roasting to the packaging. And there's so much that goes into sustainability it's even hard to really process. But interestingly, what we've seen that has probably had the biggest impact [is] really just on the coffee processing side itself. I mean, eight years ago when we were bringing in naturals and honeys, we couldn't even get specialty cafes to accept our samples if they weren't washed. And now it's like, we can't seem to buy enough alternative-processed coffees. It's just kind of amazing to see the shift, whether it's the sensory side of things and flavor profiles to the awareness of what goes into, you know, removing a small seed from a cherry and how much impact that that can really have.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:05:45] Yeah. And going back to the solar integration there, I think I saw it right on the packaging. There's a little stamp of, you know, "solar roastery," or something like [that]. I don't remember exactly what it said, but I just saw that and I thought that man, that's so cool. And maybe it was on the website and I'm just getting confused, but at least, you know, just putting it out there and not saying like, you know, patting yourself on the back, but it's like, "Hey, this is a fact about this coffee and it's a good thing."
And you know, there's plenty of people where they could make the step and you guys chose to make the step. And I think that's so cool. Did you guys wind up doing actual solar panel integrations on your facility or are you doing an exchange program for that?
Jon Allen: [00:06:23] No, we did solar panel integration. So we placed that basically for the five years, we were sort of setting a little bit aside every month, waiting to be able to do it. We have, where our roastery is, a pretty large landscape to put it on. And so basically our entire roof is covered in panels and we were actually, the goal was to really do both the cafe and the roastery through solar and... and then we realized how hard that was going to be. And we ran out of real estate and chose to do just the roastery instead, but maybe one day, you know.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:06:54] You know, let's be honest with that roasting facility. I feel like the roof was kind of the last unused space there, which is actually a great segue as far as efficiency goes: workflow efficiency, space-use efficiency, processing efficiency, and, you know, even environmental efficiency as we were just chatting about. Because you guys are doing volume out of that space.
Jon Allen: [00:07:16] Yeah. Our roastery is basically our headquarters now, so it is one large building that houses the cafe in the front, our bakery, all our offices a training lab facility, obviously our production roaster and then all the bags and equipment as we self-distribute everything and keep everything in-house.
So we have basically filled literally every inch with some sort of office position or we're like working within the cafe - Andrea and myself both don't have offices so we work in the cafe itself because we just ran out of room for a space to go. But so far it's all been working well. I mean, in a way we pivoted very hard during COVID when, you know, we were primarily an industry focused roastery. And by that, I mean, a majority of what we roasted was for wholesale and going to other high-end cafes and restaurants and people in hospitality to keep open and just to evolve that quickly, pivoted as things were starting to close and we started focusing more on e-commerce and so we've really changed our workflow pretty dramatically in the last year from... as a company that's used to sending one 50-pounds box, to 50 one-pound boxes, that kind of thing, which just changes the whole scope of manpower and just production in general.
So we've recently basically moved all our packaging to where our offices were, ripped out all the offices and are doing all our packaging straight below the roastery with just a gravity feed of roasted beans going down, which is kind of crazy to think about, but you know, forced us to make a change. And it's actually been, been really good for the company and we sort of wish we had done it two years before.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:09:00] When you're coming into a problem like that, right, like everybody had wild industry shifts last year. You still got a set amount of space. You got a set amount of cash. Do you guys have any kind of rules of thumb when you're making these drastic changes like that you try and do in advance before you start the implementation? Or are you guys kind of just let's get into the space? Let's visualize it. Let's feel it out and develop the workflow from there. What's your philosophy on that?
Jon Allen: [00:09:25] There's definitely some sort of rules of thumb, as in like, we want to make everything pretty aesthetically pleasing. And that's partly because everything is open to the cafe, but even in the downstairs area where it's not visible, I mean, it's part of our culture. And within Onyx, we want to enjoy and take pride in where we work.
So we don't want to just have you know, the sloppy mess that's just kind of like pasted together, back where the employees work and then this pretty, shiny front where the customers are. That's not really the goal. And so we're still working on that even now as we've been shifting, but that is always a big goal of ours is to have full cohesion between the customer and employee area, as far as like, if you're going to tangibles, it's like, we're going to spend the same amount per square footage for the employee break room as we're going to spend for the customer seating area. Right? Like that is a conscious effort on our culture parts as sort of like, if we can't make a nice for the staff, then we also shouldn't be able to make it nice for the customer.
So that's probably the first thing that starts taking consideration. And also because I'm basically obsessive compulsive and am like obsessed with symmetry and Andrea calls me "Top-Shelf Jon," she thinks I like always trying to make things look too nice, but I'm always wanting it to look right.
So yeah, aesthetics are really important to me. And then secondly is the efficiency footprint through a use of loaders and how equipment is going to move, how we're going to move large volumes of coffee now downstairs or to the next bagging position. All of that is really taken into consideration and that's the part that also is in view of most of the public. And so we want not just for it to look clean, but also because it becomes an incredible learning tool for what specialty coffee is so that people can see roasting. They can see bagging and they can see, you know, the Sovda sort the coffee, they can see green being loaded. I mean, simple things like seeing green coffee turn brown is still, you know, even to me it's still magical sometimes. Although, you know, day after day, it can get old, but like, that is what initially drew us in. And I don't want to forget about that magic, right? That smell all the textures and the smoke and the sensory and all the things that we all love about coffee.
We need the customers to still feel that. And also when they get excited, then you know what, it it's like I get excited and I can relive that passion again, through the wide eyes of the kid watching roasting or whatever, whatever is happening, right. A pourover for the first time, that kind of thing. All of those things are kind of taken into consideration when we're either designing a space or remodeling the space or now pivoting quickly during the apocalypse.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:12:10] Yeah. Well, you know I think it is so key to be able to grab that fascination and the whimsy associated with coffee, I think we all had it and that's what drew us in, like you said, and then when it does pop back, it's just, you know, it's so great. I remember my first SCA, there was a MP Strada there and the guy let me pull a shot on it. And they were all laughing. They're like, oh, it's like a little kid and it was like, yeah, I was pretty much inside, you know, getting to play with this, at the time, cutting edge piece of equipment. Being able to tactilely feel which you're enabling and kind of maximizing that in that roasting facility by being able to have people so close to the process and so close to the coffee.
But I think coming off of the design awards that you guys got just this past month, congrats on those awards, by the way, did you have any notes or thoughts that you wanted to throw in regarding the packaging? Because, I mean, it's great packaging.
Jon Allen: [00:13:02] You know what the packaging, with the rebrand, we just felt like it was time. We had been a company for a decade and, and you just... so much changes with, whether the direction of art you're into, or for us, we had started at sort of this semi punk rock specialty coffee company in an area that didn't have any coffee at all. And we're trying to get attention and, you know, had a little man complex and whatever else you want to associate with us that we did wrong.
And it just felt like it was time to be a little bit more mature in what we were trying to do. And also we're really proud of the coffees and wanted to set an expectation that what was inside the box itself or package was really nice. And we think that the real magic it happens in hospitality when you raise the bar and your expectation is really high. And then we hope to meet that expectation on the flavor. You know, that's when, when something really special happens and so we needed to rethink the overall aesthetic of. How can we get someone to be, be really excited and raise that expectation before they even brew? And so that was why we really focused on more outside of even visuals, the feel of the box, holding it the way the soft touch concept to it, the idea of opening it and feeling like, you know, like a kid at Christmas when you're unwrapping something or, or anytime, whatever you're doing, that you get this gift at a birthday and you're opening something up. There's an anticipation. And so. Yeah. The hope was to, to build that anticipation, to really think about the other-sensory side of things, not just the visual, and then, and then hopefully allow the coffee to justify what they hope to drink there. And so, That was the whole goal behind it that we spent about two years designing it and finding suppliers and then re-finding suppliers and all the craziness that goes with the rebrand.
And, you know, to be honest, the goal was not to launch a rebrand during the pandemic, but the reality was that we basically had run out of the old Onyx bags and we were sitting on all this new packaging and the new website, and we kept waiting for the pandemic to end so we could like come out swinging and it never did. And at that point, it was too late to go back. So... and maybe that ended up being, you know, sort of a blessing in disguise because that built a little hype again, and helped us make it through a really hard time.
Nicholas Flatoff: [00:15:22] I think you touched on a really, really important note to me that I'm going to jump back to, which is the coffee inside, justifying everything up to it. And you do kind of run the risk, if you've got this beautiful, amazing packaging and you pull it out and the coffee's mediocre, you know, you've set the expectations super high and people are disappointed and that's something that distinctly does not happen with Onyx coffee in my experience. Yeah, I just blew through your Ethiopia Bombe and it was super tasty, great packaging, you know, a hundred percent on, on everything there, but let's jump into that real quick. So we've got the processing space, we've got the service space, we've got the engagement space, the packaging all done to a T and the coffee is as well. You know, it's that not settling philosophy at, at every single step of the way.
So what are you doing? Primarily to make sure that that coffee quality that you're putting into that beautiful packaging and the experience in the cup is meeting and exceeding the expectations set by the brilliant packaging. More specifically, what are the most important factors to you in ensuring that both green and roasted coffee are a hundred percent.
Jon Allen: [00:16:28] That's what we spend all our time and money trying to maintain. We definitely believe in the philosophy. You're only as good as the coffee you buy. So I believe that we have the best roasters and I love the talent of our roasters, but they're not making a bad coffee good, right? The coffee has to be good to begin with. We're just trying not to screw it up and leave our fingerprints on it.
And so, you know, the first and foremost is just, is just trying to source the best coffee we can find, you know, we're believers in a lot of things about specialty coffee from the ethical side to just the straight sensory quality side. And so we are always looking tirelessly for coffees. Both myself, Dakota, Summer.... Dakota's in Huehuetenango as we speak. I just got back from El Salvador.
We're just constantly looking for coffee as a company. We're not - some people think we're a little bit bigger of a company than we are, but to have two people sourcing coffee full-time for the size of the company we are, is, I think, really rare and shows that we are really putting an emphasis on sourcing to begin with. I mean, that is how we were built and I think it's... it is our foundation.
So it starts there and then obviously moving into the next step in quality it should be roast profiles and really trying to tighten those things up. And Nick, the manager of our roastery and his whole team do a fantastic job in production roasting.
And then, you know, really it comes down to Summer who's director of quality control. Summer has the thankless job of basically cupping 24 grams of every single batch that we've ever roasted. And I know that that is something a lot of companies say, I can verify that we do it. She's cupping hundreds of coffees a day. And that is a really hard job when you're doing 12 kilos at 70% batch size and then cupping all those coffees. So we're currently roast blends on the 70. We roast your single origins on the 12 kilo, and she is, she is checking all of those and then flagging any coffee that we shouldn't be selling or making subtle tweaks, basically daily to our roast profiles for Nick and the team to pull off.
And then, you know, recently added which is thanks to you guys is that we're basically sorting through all our coffee. And so for us, that's sort of a cherry on top, right? It's just that next slight level of, you know, we lose about 2% of our coffees, which we think is totally worth the trade in order to up that next level of quality and consistency, especially when you look at doing things like espresso or pourovers where, you know, if something escapes and throws off a shot or something, you're dumping the shot anyways. So there's a lot of efficiency built into that 2%. That's already gone. I mean, then for us, we already have quite a few donation programs set up. And so it allows us to sort of meet that demand and, you know, fee l like we're giving back a little bit into our own community with the roasted coffee, which is, you know... assorted tropical weather Ethiopian Kirite from the Sovda I can attest is delicious still. And so it's what we drink at home because just like the producers that are drinking, what they don't sell, we are doing the same, you know, the box you find behind the shelf that's six months old, that's what we're taking home to drink. So all around, I think the emphasis on quality control throughout: it is our first priority and it is in terms of, if you were to look at Onyx in a snapshot, the first people to arrive are Nick and the roasters super early and the last person to leave is Summer cupping coffee. And I think that's a good kind of like microcosm of the fact that all our work goes into that quality control and being consistent there.