Coffee Lab

How does a computer game studio end up making coffee?On the surface, The Three Thousands and Griffiths Bros might look like an unexpected collaboration.One is a Melbourne creative studio building computer games.The other is a coffee company with deep roots in roasting, hospitality and coffee culture.But the more you look at it, the more sense it makes.Games and coffee are both about experience. They’re both about culture. They’re both about energy, ritual, creativity and community.And for The Three Thousands, coffee is also part of a bigger story: how do you build a visible, culturally relevant brand when the thing you actually make can take years to build — and often can’t be talked about publicly?We’re very excited to welcome Joe Donoghue and Benjamin Dawe, Co-founders of The 3000s to the Coffee Lab!

S2E6 - Is office coffee in 2026 actually better than café coffee?If you’ve walked into a modern corporate office lately,you’ll know it’s no longer International Roast and a dusty kettle in the corner.Today’s workplace coffee is automated, data-driven,hospitality-level — and in some cases, outperforming traditional café setups in consistency and scale.So what happened?How did we go from click-clack machines in the 90s to fullyconnected coffee ecosystems that report back in real time?And what does this mean for the future of cafés, baristas,automation, and even workplace culture?Our guest today has played a big role in driving this change. We’re very excited to welcome Ross Scacco, Founder of Procaffe to the Coffee Lab.

S2E5 - Sam Taylor is a bit of an industry legend in Australia.He’s journeyed from making his first coffees in a steakhouse to competing in and judging the biggest coffee competitions in the world.Today he heads up the coffee division at Soul Origin. With more than 150 locations Australia wide, they aspire to big things, with our guest leading the charge.We’re very excited to welcome Sam Taylor, Head of Coffee at Soul Origin to the Coffee Lab.

Mel Caia started working in her family’s café at a young age - probably too young, by her own admission. But young Mel Caia loved it. After a decade or so she took a break from the industry and started work as a coffee and gelato trainer at William Angliss Institute where she still teaches today. And then, in 2006 she got accredited to judge coffee competitions and has since adjudicated on dozens of national and international competitions, including the World Barista Championships. We’re very excited to welcome Melissa Caia to the Coffee Lab! Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S2E3 - Jack Eydlish initially trained as a pharmacist and has somehow ended up Joint General Manager of Maltra Foods, a proudly Australian-owned food and beverage contract manufacturing business. Maltra started in the mid 90s when Jack’s dad fortuitously partnered in a business providing drinking chocolate and chai powders to cafes around St Kilda. Today – 27 years later – Jack and his brother Roman run the business, which has over a hundred staff, manufactures thousands of products in Victoria and Queensland, and still caters to the café business but also partners with some of the world’s leading retail and food service businesses. We’re very excited to welcome Jack Eydlish, Joint General Manager of Maltra Foods to the Coffee Lab! Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S2E2 - Just to the northwest of Noosa in Queensland, lies the small town of Gympie, population a bit over 50 thousand. It’s a far cry from the big, bustling, coffee metropolis that is Melbourne, population 5 million, some 2000km to the south. But that’s the journey today’s guest made, and the culture shock was real. We’re very excited to welcome Andrew Baldry, General Manager of Coffee Wholesale at Degani Australia, to the Coffee Lab! Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S2E1 - When your dad’s a baker, his crazy hours mean you don’t get to see much of him as a kid. Which is why as soon as they could, Steve and Mike Plarre joined their dad at the bakery. A couple of 7 or 8 year olds covered in flour, doing anything they could to get involved. Fast forward a few decades and one of them is now the CEO, the other is the General Manager of Production at Plarre Foods, more commonly known as Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouses. We’re very excited to welcome Steve Plarre to the Coffee Lab! Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S1E6 - Nick Ferrara was born in Naples, Italy and studied engineering in Rome, before launching into a career in news publishing. He also worked with his mum in a not-for-profit aimed at dissuading young people from a life of organized crime, and at some point also started a wind farm with his mates. Then, with no real knowledge of English, and having never been on a plane before, he packed up and moved to Australia – a gutsy move. Today, he’s National Training Manager with one of the most recognizable names in coffee: Lavazza. We’re very excited to welcome Nick Ferrara to the Coffee Lab. Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S1E5 - Peter Patisteas has seen Melbourne’s coffee culture unfold and mature from a front row seat. He grew up learning the art of coffee roasting – at the time, a very manual process – from his father and uncle, in the Griffiths Brothers roastery. After a foray into investment banking in London in the late 90s, he decided to go straight to the source and see how coffee starts life, on the plantations of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. And after a year, he returned to Melbourne, to settle into the family business. Today, if you ask him his job title, he’ll say something like “coffee roaster from sunny Mulgrave”, but he’s actually now co-director of Griffiths Brothers, along with his brother-in-law, Chris Togias. While the words “coffee” and “technology” don’t always fit into the same sentence, they do for Peter. He’s passionate about refining and advancing the processes around coffee production, from crop to cup, while also doing as much as possible to look after the people involved, and the environment. We’re very excited to welcome Peter Patisteas to the Coffee Lab. Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.

S1E4 - Alberto Schiavon was in Melbourne for the World Barista Championships, where for the first time, competitors did their thing using Barista Attitude machines. The machines themselves are backed by the half-century pedigree of Astoria CMA, but they’re servicing a new customer – a barista, or café owner, or multinational chain that’s looking for something a little bit different, a little bit 21stcentury. At the same time as they’re digitizing the coffee making process, Barista Attitude are working to reintroduce the humanity to coffee, with a focus on hospitality, and zoning in on the barista’s role in our daily lives. We’re very excited to welcome Barista Attitude’s Sales Manager, Alberto Schiavon, to the Coffee Lab! Join the conversation - search "Coffee Lab podcast" on socials.