Bellwether Coffee announced the launch of two new software-enabled solutions: Bellwether Hub and Bellwether On-Demand. The Hub is designed to enable small-batch electric roasting for high-volume coffee businesses. On-Demand provides access to high-quality, sustainable Bellwether roasted coffee for any business through the Bellwether Roaster Network, making ethically sourced and sustainably roasted coffee more accessible.
The Bellwether Hub is a software controlled multi-roaster system that enables small-batch sustainable roasting at scale. Each roaster in the Hub is controlled by a single interface that allows for flexibility to roast multiple SKUs at once or fulfill large orders across multiple roasters simultaneously. The system's software-powered precision can reproduce identical roasts on any roaster, giving retailers the ability to roast large volume orders with the freshness, quality and consistency of a small batch operation.
Building upon the stand-alone Bellwether Roaster, the Bellwether Hub includes comprehensive software management capabilities in its new Roast Manager. This software enables on-demand roasting and provides infrastructure to scale operations across any number of roasters and locations, delivering high-volume, small-batch artisan-roasted coffee.
The first Hub location is up and running at Bellwether's headquarters in Berkeley, California, where its patented electric and ventless design reduces 87% of the carbon footprint from roasting.
Bellwether On-Demand is a cloud network of Bellwether Hubs and Roasters that allows business owners and retailers across the country to access fresh, high-quality, sustainable Bellwether roasted coffee on demand. Users simply visit the Bellwether On-Demand website and select their preferred coffee (and roast level) from the Bellwether Marketplace, which offers a curated selection of ethically sourced coffees from around the world. Businesses can also create their own custom profile. The order goes directly to a nearby all-electric Bellwether Roaster where it is precision roasted in small, 5-pound batches.
Bellwether is launching On-Demand with its Berkeley Hub location and numerous customer locations across the country. The benefits to Bellwether customers in providing a new revenue stream can be significant, according to current Bellwether customer and owner of Latitude Coffee, Daniel Levy.
"The additional revenue that comes from the Bellwether Network is very important to our business because it covers a lot of overhead expenses," Levy said in the announcement. "It covers the days that are a little bit slower. It covers the roaster, and it even covers the green beans we buy for ourselves. It's a consistent revenue stream, and it also helps us be part of the larger Bellwether Community, so there is kind of a belonging to it."
Bellwether Coffee founder, Ricardo Lopez, added in the announcement, "Bellwether's On-Demand and Hub offerings allow us to expand the ways in which we help people scale their businesses, all the while furthering our mission to electrify coffee roasting. It really is a win-win – we're supporting a multitude of business models, but we're also empowering those businesses to drastically reduce their carbon footprint."
