This month, Market Lane Coffee turns 14. It has been an incredible journey!
When we founded Market Lane in 2009, our mission was simple: we wanted to sustainably source, roast and share exceptional coffees, and celebrate the incredible stories of the people behind them. We also wanted to make great coffee accessible and exciting, easy to understand and appreciate, and simple to brew and enjoy.
The coffee industry in Australia has changed radically over the last 14 years. Fourteen years ago, finding fresh, traceable, high quality coffee was practically impossible. We wanted to help address that and, in doing so, ignite positive change in the industry by redefining what coffee is and can be, and to build a market for, and appreciation of, specialty coffee. This is important to us because the more demand there is for high quality coffee, the better off the producers will be, and the more sustainable the coffee supply chain will become.
We opened our first shop and roastery in the wonderful, bustling Prahran Market. From there, we have slowly grown to have a dedicated roastery in Brunswick East, and nine shops, each located in very special neighbourhoods across Melbourne/Naarm. In each of these locations, we have built meaningful, ongoing relationships with the area’s unique community, and we’ve made hundreds of beautiful coffees for thousands of wonderful customers.
From the beginning, we have been committed to quality, transparency, sustainability and using business for good. These principles have a real impact on the way we buy coffee, the people we work with, and how we run our business.
We have built long-term and meaningful relationships with passionate coffee producers, and have been lucky to work with them year after year. These producers’ dedication, hard work and unwavering commitment to quality – and to supporting their local communities – blow us away every time we visit them, and reinforce all the reasons we do what we do. This makes us even more determined to celebrate and showcase their coffees, and share their stories. We know our job is done when a customer gets excited to see a specific coffee on the shelves, or asks us when it will be back in season.
Here in Melbourne/Naarm, we have been lucky to work with some incredible people. From day one right up to today, we’ve had an amazing team of people who bring such heart, passion and care to what they do. We’ve had the opportunity to work with quality-focused local producers, and with many talented creative people. We’ve also loved supplying our coffee to some of the best cafes and restaurants in Australia and the world, whose teams share our values and approach to business. And we’ve built ongoing, meaningful relationships with visionary non-profit organisations that do crucial work to make the world more just and equitable for future generations.
Ultimately, we feel extremely lucky to have these friendships and supply relationships that have blossomed locally and internationally via Market Lane. These relationships bring true meaning to what we do, and they’re what gets us out of bed in the morning.
Thank you for sharing this journey with us, and for loving beautiful coffee as much as we do. We promise to continue to strive to provide the best coffee there is; to educate and agitate and do everything we can to contribute positively to the coffee industry, and to ensure a sustainable and viable future for specialty coffee.
Here’s to the next 14!
– Jenni Bryant, Jason Scheltus and Fleur Studd, Market Lane Co-Owners
