Our path to the perfect cup.
Where it all started.
Long before founding The Wood Roaster, director Kim Loupis grew up watching his father run a highly successful business in wholesale fruit and vegetables. Being the family business, Kim saw first hand the way his father operated. He found his dad’s work ethic inspiring, empowering and most of all a huge success. One of his biggest inspirations, was noting that traditional, old fashioned service and strong relationships formed the corner stone of success.
The Wood Roaster began as a small café in Sydney, initially called il espresso. Kim noticed the desire for something unique from customers. They were tired of the same product being offered in different packaging, sick of gas roasters knocking on their doors with almost the same product time and time again.
He began to roast with wood in 2009 for his stores and at the same time, Kim set himself the challenge of perfecting the art of roasting coffee by wood. After countless hours of research, trials, refining methods, and the investment into the creation of a custom built roaster, in 2011 he expanded into wholesale and contract roasting.
Kim wanted to bring his concept to the market and help consumers understand the power and science of wood roasting, so in 2012, Kim rebranded to The Wood Roaster.
The Wood Roaster’s state of the art wood roasting machine became the only one of its kind in the world, responsible for award winning coffee blends and mouth watering flavours you are bound to love too.
Matters of taste there is no dispute.
~ Latin Proverb
Meet our leadership team.
Family business is in Kim’s blood.
Family business is in Kim’s blood.
He has recreated the same successful recipe with The Wood Roaster team.
Kim Loupis
Director/founder/roaster
Kim Loupis
Director/founder/roaster
Kim has a deep understanding of the coffee and hospitality industry with over 18 years experience under his belt. He previously ran a number of successful inner city cafes including ‘il espresso’ and ‘Underwood Lane’.
With an intricate and knowledgeable taste for coffee, Kim aims to provide an incomparable experience for his clients and deliver unmatched coffee flavours and a taste unlike any other in Australia. Kim’s focus on uncompromising customer service and strong belief that the relationships you create are the most important ingredient to creating not only a successful partnership but longstanding business.
Satin Strestha
Head roaster
Satin Strestha
Head roaster
Renown Roaster Satin has won countless awards for the business including Golden Bean 2015 and Sydney Fine Food 2012, 2016 &2017 and MICE 2020.
With over 13 years’ experience in coffee roasting and training, Satin is an assets to and staple within the business.
Extremely passionate about curating the perfect blend of coffee, Satin has an extremely unique flavour palate and through this is able to combine and conceive the most incredible coffee flavours imaginable.
Fernando Mosca
Operations manager
Fernando Mosca
Operations manager
Fernando carries a high level of customer service skills and with his relatability ensures that the business is always providing the best service to its coffee-loving client base.
Coffee can inspire in many ways. Fernando has a background as a visual artist and his inspiration often comes from his local coffee shops. His coffee-inspired projects have used recycled coffee grounds as a painting medium and coffee sacks as a canvas.
Fernando’s role at The Wood Roaster is primarily dealing with the day to day operations of the business and also the B2B and B2C communications.
John Kang
Business development manager
John Kang
Business development manager
John has worked in the specialty coffee industry for over 10 years. He started out as a barista for a small café “Maldini’s Espresso” in Strathfield. Driven to enhance and develop his career and master the art of coffee making, saw him transition to head barista and later management positions at various cafes in Sydney.
John worked with many specialty coffee brands such as Campos, Toby’s Estate, Seven Miles and more before operating his own café business from 2016-2018. Prior to joining The Wood Roaster in 2020, he worked in the specialty coffee industry as a business development manager for Campos Coffee.
Briohny Heggarty
Brand & marketing strategy
Briohny Heggarty
Brand & marketing strategy
Briohny is driven to help clients through strategic, creative and purpose driven initiatives and brings more than twenty years of brand, marketing and business experience to The Wood Roaster.
Passionate about combining a well-structured strategy with innovation and creativity, Briohny is highly organized and ambitious and brings her entrepreneurial spirit to keep us inspired and ensuring we deliver a meaningful brand to our clients.
Melissa Johnson
Sales & account manager
Melissa Johnson
Sales & account manager
With more than 25 years of experience in the industry, Mel is undeniably the heart of the business. She has been with the Wood Roaster right from the beginning.
Mel utilises her extensive knowledge of the hospitality industry to ensure the Wood Roaster is at the top of their game. She liaises with café owners and wholesale clients introducing new coffee blends and continues to lead the business to shake up the Australian coffee scene.
Craig Hempstead
Graphic design
Craig Hempstead
Graphic design
With a career in advertising and photography, Craig appreciates a good coffee and has joined our team working with Briohny, Kim and Satin to rebrand our image and take The Wood Roaster to the next level in the coffee roasting industry.
Craigs interest in urban culture, typography and photography will bring a fresh feel to the company and he will work alongside us in keeping the brand relevant in the marketplace and assist in sharing the journey of Wood Roasted coffee with our clients and customers.
Suzanne Rutherford
Digital marketing
Suzanne Rutherford
Digital marketing
With extensive experience across B2C marketing in the digital space, Suzanne is our resident digital marketing specialist.
The person behind The Wood Roaster social media accounts and email marketing campaigns, she loves to educate audiences and has a passion for growing engaged online communities.
Suzanne is focused on creating the best online experience possible for The Wood Roaster customers in an ever evolving digital marketing world.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
~ Helen Keller