Premier Training Campus Spotlight: Raf & Co
Raf & Co is a company all about collaboration, community, and providing high quality education and support for those in the coffee industry.
Premier Training Campuses (PTC) are Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) member companies or organizations whose facilities have been inspected and certified by the SCA. The program recognizes that these facilities offer an exceptional education setting for coffee education.
This week, RAF MLODZIANOWSKI, founder and CEO of Raf & Co, tells us about the company’s Premiere Training Campus located in Warsaw, Poland.
Raf & Co Team (L to R) Raf Mlodziannowski, Jane Laszkiewicz, and Stefan Waliszewski
Before establishing Raf & Co, a lot of the working as an Authorized SCA Trainer (AST) and coffee consultant took Raf all over Eastern Europe. All the frequent travel to the region - and his Polish roots - led to his decision to make Warsaw his base. At the time, Raf was also looking to join forces with other trainers and consultants, “Together we could be stronger and do more interesting work,” said Raf. “Working on your own becomes limiting after a while.” One one of his many visits to Warsaw, Raf met Stefan Waliszewski. Stefan has over a decade of coffee roasting experience, that started in Ethiopia roasting samples for large coffee producers. With Raf’s broad knowledge of consulting startups and expanding businesses and Stefan’s roasting knowledge, they decided to work together and found their ideal location. After some time, Raf reached out to Jane Laszkiewicz who he had taught in previous years and collaboratively ran some courses and events together. Jane’s experience as a competitor, Brewers world judge and Brewing AST brings a high level of brewing skill to the team - she had moved to Poland some time before so joining the team to share her passion for the art of manual brewing made total sense thus the Raf & Co team was created.
Raf & Co achieved its Premier Training Campus accreditation in 2019. The Campus offers the SCA Coffee Skills Program certification courses, Q courses, as well as consulting courses. Due to the ongoing global pandemic, Raf & Co have reduced the number of courses they run as well as class sizes to ensure the safety of their staff and students.
Becoming a certified PTC was important to Raf to further the work he and the Raf & Co team were doing. “Being an AST for so long, I wanted to have somewhere that really housed all my ideas and tools. A lot of my AST life was traveling and I wanted to root my work in one place.” For Raf, the rooted location of the campus he's built (and the accreditation as PTC) are both so rewarding. “Being an open place to host and support not only the local community but external people who want to present something.”
According to Raf, “working together with our clients and friends to find ways of collaborating together on new projects that help everyone through these times,” is the team’s motivation to keep working hard to support the coffee industry and the local community. “We have hosted many events, competitions (2019 Polish Roasting Championships), and for the now cancelled WOC Poland, we had partnered with external brands and businesses to use the space for collaborative events.”
Warsaw is a great coffee community, too, with a vibrant scene. “Overall it is a great coffee scene for brewed coffees, the coffee shops all offer good filter coffee and take time to make it well. Each location has a different atmosphere so coming for a coffee weekend here you would not have the same experience repeated.” And, if you’re dreaming about the day we’ll all gather to sit in the stands of the World Coffee Championships, Raf says that the Polish coffee community is ready and waiting for your arrival. “The community also likes to compete and each year you see many people trying to claim the National Championship. I wouldn't say it is as intense as the Greek scene but people do approach it seriously.” You can almost hear him laugh as he types the next sentence: “You may know of a certain Rojewska who has helped push the level here.”
Achieving SCA Campus certification offers global recognition of a company’s dedication to make coffee better. Learn more about how to get your own training facility certified here.
If you want to find a Campus near you, visit our Campus Map.
Photos from Raf & Co in Warsaw, Poland