#BehindtheSelfie with... Joel Singer

Joel at ‘home’ in the Origin Roastery.

1. Where do you live, work and play?

Work – Origin Coffee Roasters, Cape Town and Johannesburg
Live – Origin Coffee Roasters (just kidding!) The Cape Town CBD, Rosebank and Simon’s Town.
Play – Whenever I can… in the sea or on a mountain, in exotic places around the world – I’ve visited over 40 countries, most recently Vietnam – and in great restaurants and cafes all over the world.

2. What’s your claim to fame?

Singer: I’d like to think I and the rest of the team at Origin were responsible for the launch of the artisan coffee revolution in Cape Town and South Africa. I feel that we are still at the bleeding edge, continuing to drive its ongoing development, pushing the boundaries to bring us to a truly world-class level.

I also doubt there are many Jewish guys from Montreal around who tossed a career working for the world’s richest man to, against the tide, move to South Africa and go into the coffee industry. The people organising my 25th high school reunion said: “We know you’re probably not coming, but just so we can tell everyone, please explain how you ended up in Cape Town when it seems everyone from SA moves to Canada…”

3. Describe your career so far.

Singer: Microsoft program manager, traveller, full-time dad, coffee roaster/café entrepreneur. I don’t want to even guess what might come next!

4. Tell us a few of your favourite things.

Singer: My family. Great food. Great wine. Great beer. Most recently, grilled pork noodles in Saigon with ice, ice cold lager. Beautiful and exotic places. Interesting people. Unique experiences. As I answer the question, ancient ruins in remote places come to mind, maybe because I missed Angkor Wat on my recent trip to South East Asia. Next time…

5. What do you love about your industry?

Singer: People and the relationships and experiences and memories they can create together over a cup of coffee.

6. What are a few pain points your industry can improve on?

Singer: After 10 years of hard work, and hard work by many others besides me/us; the actual quality of coffee served still is not a big enough focus of consumers or hospitality managers and owners. While they often get so much else right, I wish more people would commit to serving coffee that’s truly world class in terms of quality, and with proper traceability and strong sourcing ethics behind it. I don’t eat and drink décor or Facebook or Twitter, as important as all of that is. I drink coffee.

As much as I enjoy being able to eat out relatively cheaply in SA in international terms, prices are too low in cafes and restaurants here. This makes the business environment very challenging. It also keeps salaries very low, which makes it very difficult to keep the talented people we need engaged in and contributing to the hospitality industry – for example, baristas. I want to see great baristas being paid and respected as the professionals that they are – check out Australian barista salaries! We also want to see producers of exceptional coffee earning more and more for what they produce. Achieving those goals will require consumers here and everywhere to demand more and be willing to pay more for it.

While South Africa’s GDP per capita ranks 90th in the world, our cappuccino price is the 155th cheapest, behind such quality coffee powerhouses like China (17th), Azerbaijan (42nd), Papua New Guinea (50th), Angola (64th), Nigeria (74th), Ghana (85th), Zimbabwe (97th) and Indonesia (131st) to name but a few. For a product whose only ingredient is priced worldwide in US dollars, that’s never going to get us where we need to go.

7. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

Singer: Far too much time spent on my PC and in my office. Far too little time being engaged directly with my café customers, my wholesale customers, my staff or the coffee and tea itself. It often feels like all my effort goes into making sure the rest of the Origin team get to do all of that “really important” stuff. When I do get to do those things, it makes me very happy. We’re a small company. I have to deal with a crazy range of issues on a daily basis. My biggest challenge is operating on so many levels, from very low-level detail to big picture strategy.

8. What are the tools of your trade?

Singer: My PC and smartphone – WhatsApp, email, etc., but I am finding those less and less effective all the time, and am trying hard to focus on other ways to get things done. My café and my team are the real foundations that allow me to make things happen. They keep me connected to the people and to the coffee itself.

9. Who is getting it right in your industry?

In cafés – The small independents who create diversity in café experience – which coffees they pour, the skilled baristas with unique personalities that they hire, music, décor, vibe and experience, etc.
In hospitality as a whole – The many who have finally made the shift to better, locally roasted coffee and other products like local craft beer. 10 years ago when we started, it was so hard to get even the best venues to recognise that better coffee was essential to customer experience.
In roasting – The many who pour their time, heart and soul into improving consumers’ coffee experience and into educating them. Particular kudos to the roasters who continue to improve their craft and sourcing and who provide truly exceptional coffee, showing the extremes of what can be done in terms of cup quality.

10. What are you working on right now?

Singer: Far too much!

11. Tell us some of the buzzwords floating around in your industry at the moment, and some of the catchphrases you utter yourself.

Singer: Looking at international trends – Local. Quality. Provenance. Traceability. Authenticity. Relationship. Artisan. On some of these, SA remains a bit behind, but we’re catching up fast. There are those in SA who really deliver on these. However, some of these terms are in danger of losing meaning as they are being diluted by those who don’t really deliver what the buzzwords promise. PR < > reality. When I started Origin 10 years ago, I was told not to use the word “artisan” because in South Africa, it referred to plumbers, bricklayers and plasterers. It seems these days you can pretty much get artisan anything.

12. Where and when do you have your best ideas?

Singer: When I sit calmly at home or on a beach or on the mountain. But even more so, I find inspiration when I travel.

13. What’s your secret talent/party trick?

Singer: Cooking the food for it. I make a pretty mean zabaglione. My French toast with real Canadian maple syrup is pretty amazing, too.

14. What would we find if we scrolled through your phone?

Singer: Tons of email and WhatsApps. Too many coffee- and Origin-related pics. Lots of travel pics. Not enough pics of my family, who are the most important thing in my life. Kids grow so fast!

15. What advice would you give to newbies hoping to crack into the industry?

If you want to work in cafes – Work in great places. Work with great people you can learn from. Coffee is a bit of a calling. You want to learn from the best people you can.
If you want to open your own café – Work in someone else’s café first – learn the lessons on their payroll! Think carefully about whether this industry is for you. Do your research properly and take the time to do some real analysis of the opportunity before you commit. Research online. Travel and visit business elsewhere that successfully do what you aspire to do. Research is cheap when you consider how much time and money you are going to put into your dream to try to make it successful.
If you want to open a roaster – Don’t. There are too many of us already!

Simple as that. Singer spends so much time with tech in his work life that he doesn’t use it as much as he should on the personal side, but if you want to connect, he recommends meeting in the café and chatting over a coffee.

On the Origin side, you can check out their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages.

*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.