Barista Automation for Social Inclusion (Foreword’s 4th Coffee Outlet)
The third wave of coffee movement saw the reprise of manual coffee brewing methods such as the V60, Kalita Wave, and Siphon methods. The goal is to brew out the best from the coffee beans and showcase the coffee’s flavours through the skills of the barista.
With the push for innovation and greater automation within the coffee industry, how do we see the role of the barista evolving?
The first milestone in Foreword’s 2021 calendar is the opening of our new outlet at Canberra Plaza. This marks our 4th outlet after the previous three outlets located within Civil Service College, Centre for Healthcare Innovation, and Temasek Shophouse.
Located within the family lounge in Canberra Plaza, the cafe outlet is not a standalone unit like the other tenants within the mall. This space is special to us as much as it is special within Canberra Plaza.
Barista Automation allows Better Quality and Consistency
With every new outlet, we seek to improve on our workflow and processes. This outlet at Canberra Plaza is no different.
Foreword has always eyed on new technologies that can help make our team more effective. The use of an automatic tamper (i.e. Puqpress) and the volumetric function on our espresso machines helped us achieve consistency in the espresso we produce, but we still face the challenge in milk frothing techniques. Espresso calibration is also considered a higher-order skill where coffee theory knowledge meets experience, and only our supervisors are capable of doing this despite much staff training.
To overcome these challenges, we decided to adopt the innovative Eversys coffee system. The Eversys coffee system includes in-built grinders allowing us to serve 2 choices of coffee beans at once and a 1.5 step steam wand which produces barista-quality milk. Coffee calibration is now achieved with a touch of the button; through repeated uses and machine learning, the coffee is automatically calibrated to how we want the coffee to taste.
In our opinion, the push for automation is a step forward which makes the coffee industry more open to greater inclusion for persons with disabilities and special needs.
Tapping into SG Enable’s Job Redesign Grant
As part of Foreword’s social mission to provide employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, we are able to tap on the SG Enable Job Redesign Grant (as part of the Open Door Programme) to help defray up to 90% of the cost of purchasing the Eversys. With the inclusion of the Eversys coffee system in our cafe outlet, we make work easier and more accessible to our staff with disabilities and special needs, creating new roles for them, which also results in higher income for our staff.
SG Enable is no stranger to Foreword and we have been a recipient of multiple grants and award from SG Enable since our company’s inception in 2017, including the Training Grant to conduct our Cafe Confidence Programme for persons with disabilities and we were one of the Best Newcomer Award recipients in the 5th Enabling Employers Awards in 2019.
Push for Social Inclusion through Governmental Efforts
It started more than a year ago when we were looking out for potential spaces to open new outlet(s) in 2019. This opportunity was presented to us by raiSE (Singapore Centre for Social Enterprises) as they knew of our intention for expansion. We put in a proposal to run this coffee kiosk in Canberra Plaza when the Housing Development Board’s (HDB) committee was just conceptualizing how this space should be like. The finalized plans and setting up of the space were severely delayed because of Covid-19 in 2020, but we are thankful that works were able to be resumed in December and within 3 months, we are ready to go.
Canberra Plaza is our first foray into the heartlands and a shopping mall owned by HDB. This coffee kiosk setup would not be possible if not for HDB’s link up with raiSE to support social enterprises.
More than Just a Coffee Kiosk
Sustainability is at the core of Foreword and this coffee outlet is no different.
If you live nearby, drop by often with your own cup to get 10% BYOC (bring your own cup) discount and taste all 10 single-origin coffee which we rotate frequently in our hoppers.
If you are a gardening hobbyist or a zero-waste supporter, bring down a container to collect FREE coffee grounds from us.
Get to know our friendly cafe crew and you might just find this space your favourite place to “work from home”.
This blog post is written by Wei Jie, co-founder and director of Foreword. A people-developer, Wei Jie sees technology as an enabler for persons with disabilities to participate meaningfully in the workforce. Foreword does not fear technology; we adopt technologies while balancing the need for craftsmanship to empower our team which consists mainly of persons with disabilities and special needs.
