Grinding is our dedication. This is stated under our logo, and this is the slogan we live by. You notice it immediately as you enter the Mahlkönig office, and you soon realize, that it is exactly so.
A while ago, a six-member team from Coffee Island, visited Hamburg and the Mahlkönig offices and Factory. The German company, has an 8-year-old history in the field and despite the problems in the industry, has stayed dedicated to what it does better than anything, which is manufacturing completely hand-made grinding mills. We became part of their team for two knowledge and training-filled days.
Mahlkönig means the king of grinding as Joerg explained. Joerg Krah is the sales director for North and East Europe, and is the man who welcomed us. He is one of our closest partners, but also a friend, who took it upon himself to give us a small company presentation. The company is very clearly quality oriented and this is more than obvious, in everything. From the detailed presentation in the beginning to the floor plan, the decoration and the company culture of all the people who work there. We were introduced to Christian Klatt, Senior Product Manager of the company who is behind nearly all of the company’s projects. Christian undertook the task of giving us the tour of the productive part of the factory.
Passing through the main gate, you can understand that the facilities are separated in two central buildings. In one lie the offices, the training halls and the Hemro Academy (Mahlkönig is part of the Hemro business group) and in the other you can find MK technologies, where the knives for the grinding mills are made. The two buildings are separated by a green outdoor space and are joined by two wide hallways. The testing labs and storage spaces can be found in one, and in the other, the grinding mill production line. The tour is truly impressive, seeing all this knowledge, experience and attention that is given to every individual detail.
The impressive part is the section in which the knives are made. Christian explains that this is what makes the company stand out, be a leader in its field. A lot has been invested in machinery and know-how, so that the best knives of the market can be produced, to such a point, that they supply competitors’ needs. The main difference however, is the research done by each company, in the matter of carving the knives, the shape and the depth of the serrations. Christian explains that this is crucial as “each knife must be carved and each serration must have a specific shape, angle and depth. This carving peculiarity defines the quality of the grind. The larger the angle, the more aggressive and fast the blend, so it must be supported by a more powerful motor. Everything is dependent on each user’s individual needs”. The company has the ability to make mills both for household use such as the Vario and industrial level grinding mills.
During our stay, we were part of technical seminars, scientific presentations and conversation panels on innovative products. In these meetings, we defined the ways in which our two companies co-operate, when it comes to research and product technological development. We bore witness to the expertise and the dedication everyone has and the attention to detail and high quality, As Christian said… accuracy. Accuracy, perfection and precision… because any small mistake can happen and affect years’ worth of efforts.
A cup of coffee begins its journey a long time before it is delivered to us in a mug… from the moment a flower blooms on a tree branch to the time the bean is roasted, a little more than a year will go by. The flower will become a seed, the seed will ripen, be collected, processed, stored, will travel across the world and undergo the roasting process. Even then, before it reaches the mug, there will be immeasurable tests of roasting and infusing, before it ends up in our mug. All this effort might be proven to be in vain, if in the four seconds that the grinding will take, something goes wrong.
In Coffee Island, we don’t pick our partners based on commercial criteria, but we build relationships, invest on them and develop. For us the phrase coffee roasters that accompanies our name is key. We share the same passion, attention to quality and vision as the people of Mahlkönig.
Coffee Island, Perfectly Engineered Coffee.
