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About us
Our story
Flight Coffee is a family of driven people that work together to produce amazing coffee, while always aiming to have the best impact we can on the industry and the lives it connects. Our focus is on coffee appreciation, education, and development. Education is key.
Stay hungry. Stay curious. Have fun.
2009
The conception
Conceived in the most classic of Kiwi beds (a garage in a small town) Richard Corney’s insatiable curiosity about how to make things better led him to try roasting his own coffee while running a coffee shop in Hawkes Bay.
He didn’t hesitate in assembling a dream team; The Flight Coffee Triceratops united with Matt Graylee and Nick Clark joining their best bud Richard in the quest to improve coffee.
2010
The Memphis Belle Coffee House
To get the message of Flight Coffee to the people, a face of the company was needed. With the help of many friends, a 28 square metre space in a historically dodgy part of town was transformed into the cosiest specialty coffee shop in Wellington.
Almost entirely constructed using recycled and often free materials, Memphis Belle Coffee House opened in March 2010, and quickly began winning café awards for being chur.
2011
The Raw Material
The most delicious roasted coffee can only come from high-quality raw beans. So Matt headed off overseas to work and learn in as many coffee-producing countries as possible, with the goal of improving Flight Coffee’s supply chain.
Very soon it became clear that in order to have a positive impact more resources would be required, so this project evolved into a full-time green bean farming, exporting, importing, and consulting company called Raw Material, and Matt hasn't lived in NZ since.
2012
The Hangar, Ronak & Helena
Time for the roasting operation to move to Wellington! While most wouldn’t see potential in a carpark, a bit of imagination and a ton of hard work created the Hangar, housing both the new roastery and a cafe. Like with all babies, there was some loud teething and sleepless nights, but after a ton of hard yakka the Hangar opened in September 2012.
A loyal customer from the very first day of Memphis Belle Coffee House, this is the year Ronak Patel came on board as the bean counter and in-house comic. Quartet time.
Meanwhile in Colombia, the first coffee farm transformation project was underway at Helena, and our ideal supply-chain was taking form.
2013
The WBC, the new roastery & Betty
After years of competing in the NZ Barista Championships, in 2013 Nick won and had the opportunity to represent NZ at the worlds. He went on to place 5th in the World Barista Championship finals. Nick was also chair of the NZ Barista Guild from 2013 to 2015.
The roastery had outgrown the Hangar within a year of moving to Wellington, so in Nov 2013 the new HQ opened around the corner. Now the Hangar could not only fill the cups of customers, but also the plates with a full functioning kitchen built where the roaster had been.
Time for another roaster upgrade, to a refurbished and tricked-out classic Probat UG22 called Betty.
2014
The Trev
In late 2014 this other guy, Trev (who had been with Flight Coffee from the start) was like “I wanna be a part of this too – like for real”.
Trev pitched to buy in with the best PowerPoint presentation of all time, featuring “Boom” by P.O.D. and including the offer of tattooing each of the now five fly-boy’s faces on his milky buttocks.
Trev made partner and took the role of General Manager in NZ. Nothing in this paragraph is fabricated.
2015
The farm & the freshest pots
Raw Material was now in full swing with various projects underway to achieve the goal of greater price stability for coffee producers and improved income equality along the value-chain. El Fénix was bought in 2015, an 8 ha coffee farm in Colombia, to be the base for the team and a community wet mill for the neighbourhood.
In NZ it was time to go North, so in October 2015 a little tasting pop-up store on the corner of Wyndam and Queens st in Auckland was opened. Named Fresh Pots after the Dave Grohl classic Foo Fighter’s video.
2016
The year of the upgrades
The factory graciously received a spruce up to align with the rest of the brand and company. On top of that, the lab has been designed and almost built. The plan is to house all quality control, training, coffee profiling and sample roasting, family movie nights, and presentations within the space.
This year isn't over, so let's see what happens come January. Thank you all for being a part of the journey so far, have fun!
2017
El Fénix
In 2016, Raw Material purchased its very own coffee farm. After a few years of working producers the world over, we decided it’s time for us to lay down our own roots (yes, pun indented) and create a space that can act as a flag ship farm for experiments, production concepts, and provide a model to give coffee producers stable pricing.
In December 2016, we ran a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the construction of a community wet mill in the eastern municipality of Quindío, Colombia. This project provides neighbouring farmers with greater control over their coffee quality, and much needed control of their income through a fixed price payment system.
We believe that by allowing people from different points of the value chain to cup and discuss coffee together, the market opens up. By building an advanced community wet-mill, we can make good on the promise of development through trade.
2018
What's good, Auckland?
Auckland started to become a very frequent place for us to travel to so we decided it’s time to permanently put some boots on the ground. Nick Clark, one of our founders and directors packed his bags, his house, his dog (you may have seen a white ball of fluff walking around?) and headed to the big smoke. We found an epic old warehouse on Dominion rd and in true FC style, turned it into a functioning office, training, and tasting studio. Our goal was to set up, start growing a small team so we’re able to better support our wholesale customers in the North while continuing to grow the FC brand.
2019
New old mates
2019 marks 10 years for us in the coffee biz for us. We’ve always aim to be best and given we’re hitting 10 years in 2019, we started thinking about what the next 10 years would look like and how we’d like to see it unfold.
After a year’s worth of chats, meetings, coffees and good times, we made the decision that if we really want to be the best, why not work with some of the people we admire most in this industry. Cue our new business partners. Veneziano Coffee Roasters. We’ve known them since 2012. In 2013 they generously lent us their training room in Melbourne when Nick was competing in the World Barista Champs and since then, we’ve always kept in close contact, sharing knowledge and admiring what they do from a far.
We rate them as one of the best in the coffee biz (in the world even) and after our many meetings with them, we decided that a partnership with a company of legends is a dream come true. They work with us to help map our goals, share insights and learnings from all their years and then leave us to carry out our vision - to make great coffee simple for all of NZ.
2020
The year of... let's just say it was a year
The year that everyone remembers but wishes they didn’t. Right? Well not with us. While 2020 sure did have its challenges (and then some) it also came with a few solid wins for us here at FC.
We started the big twenty off with a bang by installing our new roaster, a 70kg Loring which is 3 x the size of our last, way more efficient, and very environmentally friendly. The coffee has never tasted sweeter according to sweet Steve. Later on that year our very own Alan Bruce and Eric Sugandi placed 1st and 2nd in the NZ cup tasters Championships which was an amazing achievement. The two best tasters in NZ were part of Flights very own roasting team - how lucky are we?!
And to top it all off, we launched our new wholesale 1kg bags which keep the coffee fresh for long while looking a little nicer on the eyes. We then formed a partnership with Future Post to recycle our 1kg bags and turn them into fence posts. Very very cool. So while the big C was not ideal, we certainly did make the most of it.
2021
It's all about quality in the cup
2021 was pretty fun. We started off by collaborating with one of the world's most well known coffee farms when it comes to high quality and rare coffees - Hartman Estate from Panama. We worked with Jameson who owns and runs the farm along with New Ground Manufacturing to craft what we reckon is the world's first (or at least one of) specialty instant coffees using the Gesha variety. It was incredible and sold like hot cakes.
We then continued on our year of quality working with our very own Luise who had been the Head Barista at Hangar for a few years and now a part of our roasting team. Lu had a dream of competing and winning the NZ Barista champs and that’s exactly what we did. We worked with her to develop a routine which was focused around coffee grown at our farm, El Fenix. After Lu gave an inspirational performance and took out first place in the NZ Barista championships, we celebrated by putting on a bit of a roadshow around NZ. Her performance was the concept of the ’hero’s journey’ highlighting key characters and milestones in the coffee's journey from seed all the way to the cup. We wanted to make this more accessible to the public so ran an event and tasting in Auckland, Wellington, and Wānaka.
2022
Bring on the World's (again)
We were ‘fizzing’ to kick off 2022. In Jan 2022 we launched our first ever coffee in a can. Sparkling Cold Brew made with our Bomber Blend and infused with Mandarin and Mānuka Honey. A fav beverage for the roasting team to chug down on a hot Summer’s day.
Our very own Alan Bruce went onto the World Cup Tasters Championship to compete and landed a smooth 5th place which is an incredible achievement. We decided we needed a bit more range and flex so we jumped on it and launched our very own range of Instant Coffees: Bomber, Bomber Mushroom, and Timor Leste. All three were very well received, so much so it was hard to keep up with to start.
Luise went off to Melbourne to compete at the World Barista Champs and did us incredibly proud coming in a solid 16th place.
We collaborated with our buddies over at Honest Rum to run a series of Markets at our Auckland site, 222 and while on that, worked to release a Flight Coffee and Honest Coffee Liqueur (which is flipping delicious). We carried on with the spirit of collaboration and worked with our pals over at Deep South to produce a super yum Caramel Frappe Ice Cream which can be found in a bunch of supermarkets around NZ.
And to finish it off, our very own flagship cafe The Hangar turned 10. So naturally, like all proud dads, we threw a big party and did a special Hangar Bday blend to celebrate. How good.
2023
Another champion, good things in small pods, and more RTDs
We started the year off strong by releasing our second coffee in a can - the Oat Milk Flat White. Delicious. Our very own Nico, the Head Barista at the Hangar went out and won the NZ Latte Art Champs. Absolute legend. We went ahead and decided it was time to make our coffee and ourselves more accessible to more people so we went ahead and put our coffee into pods. Nespresso compatible and everything. Cafe quality coffee at the push of a button, yes please.
After working so hard on a few new products we decided we wanted to make a bit more of a splash and put ourselves out so we locked in a couple of spots at the Wellington and Auckland Foodshow and hoollyyyyy heecckkaaaa it was a good time, a pleasure to talk to so many Kiwis about coffee and how to enjoy a better cup of coffee on the daily was a real treat.
We also ended the year with some can releases including a real head turner, Oat Milk Strawberry Mocha. We then went on to release an Oat Milk Chai Latte and Oat Milk Matcha Latte in a can. Another great and delicious year.
2024