Bühler and IKAWA partner to explore innovation in roasting

(In the 1^st Photo from left to right): Michael Blatter, Head of Segment Coffee at Bühler Group, Aashish Mane, Business Development, leading the collaboration in the Bühler team, and Andrew Stordy, Founder and CEO of IKAWA, during a workshop in Uzwil, Switzerland. (In the 2^nd Photo): Michael Blatter with IKAWA's sample roaster and Andrew Stordy next to the RoastMaster 20.

Bühler to strengthen presence in the coffee roasting market 

London (United Kingdom), Uzwil (Switzerland), August 8, 2023 – Innovative British coffee roaster creator IKAWA and leading Swiss technology group Bühler has begun a partnership focused on innovation in the gap between micro and medium- to large-scale coffee roasting. The strategic partnership aims to explore the potential for product development between IKAWA’s market-leading sample roasters and Bühler’s RoastMaster series to address this gap.  

Bühler and IKAWA came to the coffee marketplace following different paths. Bühler has an industrial background with more than 50 years of coffee engineering competence and has worked with many medium and large roasters to set up coffee processing plants globally. Bühler’s RoastMaster series comprises four sizes with throughput per hour ranging from 70 kilograms up to 1 ton. 

IKAWA is leading the adoption of digital roasting, making sample evaluation easy and accessible. IKAWA entered the coffee stage in 2010 as a start-up and is today well known throughout the global coffee supply chain for its precise, app-controlled, and user-friendly micro-roasting technology, aimed at helping coffee businesses make better and quicker purchasing decisions. The IKAWA Pro Series comprises the Pro50, Pro100, and the brand-new Pro100x which includes the industry's first IKAWA humidity sensor. 

Bühler’s integration across the coffee supply chain, its unrivaled service support footprint, and IKAWA’s global presence in the specialty coffee market makes them perfectly positioned to team up for innovation in a market that has much room for development.