The Great Automation Debate, with Groupe SEB’s Dominique Lasseur and Gail’s Kasjan Orzol

Groupe SEB counts world-leading automated coffee brands WMF and Schaerer in its brand portfolio. Gail’s is a boutique café-bakery chain that trades on its hand-crafted credentials. On the face of it, these pioneering coffee businesses have two very different visions for the future of coffee and hospitality, but can they find common ground as automation profoundly reshapes the coffee industry?

Dominique Lasseur, Director – Coffee Program at SEB Professional Beverage, argues that automation is democratising high-quality coffee for more venues, creating new growth opportunities for businesses while boosting innovation and consumer demand. She also believes a balance can be achieved between manual and full automation in the coffee industry – but this strategy is not without its risks for operators.

Kasjan Orzol is the Coffee Technical Manager at Gail’s. His role is to protect and innovate the bakery-café chain’s handcrafted, artisanal credentials. He argues that operators risk diluting their brand USP if they adopt automation too quickly. But are too many manual coffee operators romanticising the past?