Growing up in an Italian family, Phillip Di Bella had a love and passion for coffee instilled in him at a young age. “When I was tall enough to reach the stove my dad’s words were, ‘well now it’s time to start making my coffee,’” says Phillip Di Bella, chairman and chief entrepreneurial officer of Di Bella Coffee.

Phillip Di Bella took his love of coffee and entrepreneurship and established Di Bella Coffee in 2002. And what first started out as a one-man-show has grown to become Australia’s largest specialty coffee manufacturer.

ABOUT DI BELLA COFFEE

Di Bella Coffee was first established as a small coffee-roasting operation in the suburbs of Brisbane.

“In the beginning I was using somebody else’s roasting machine to manufacture coffee, and I was walking the streets and knocking on doors to get cafes and restaurants to buy my product,” Di Bella says. “My point of difference was about me being in the people business, not in the coffee business. I wanted to create an experience and to me it’s all about working in partnership with cafés, not just supplying my product. And that’s the philosophy I built my business around.”

Phillip quickly caught the attention of local cafés with his enthusiasm for not only his product, but customer service as well, and quickly became a key player in the local coffee scene.

Throughout the following nine years the company proceeded to grow and flourish at an extraordinary speed. This growth was even recognised in the BRW Fast 100 for 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 and Di Bella Coffee is the only coffee company to make the list in consecutive years.

Currently, Di Bella Coffee wholesales to customers throughout Australia, with Roasting Warehouses in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and also retails through its online store MyDiBellaCoffee.com.

Through his strong entrepreneurial approach, Phillip Di Bella has built a successful business centred on people and customer relations. “The focus of this business is the entrepreneurial approach, I look at things and say how can I do that better or different and that’s what has made this company win awards,” Di Bella says. “And I always say I’m not in the coffee business, I’m in the people business. I’m not in the business of selling more coffee, I’m in the business of working with people.”

INSTANT NATURAL COFFEE

Di Bella Coffee is in the process of launching a brand-new product called Torq, an all-natural instant coffee, which is unique to Di Bella Coffee.

“What makes Torq different is that it’s a liquid, as opposed to a powder, has a 12 month shelf life, it’s made out of top-quality coffee, and with it you can make a hot cup of coffee, an iced coffee, you can use it in a martini, or you can use it for baking. So it’s like a natural coffee ingredient,” Di Bella says

Di Bella Coffee is partnering with Ryan Coffee, which is located in San Francisco, Calif, to manufacture this product. Through this partnership, Torq will be distributed throughout the US, as well as Australia.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Di Bella Coffee has recently taken the leap into the world of social media and has just finished building an internal Facebook page for its wholesale clients. Through this private page wholesale clients can have access to Di Bella Coffee’s information and resources, including marketing, human resources, and general business.

“Our new Facebook page is an amazing communication highway, it’s like having a website, but it’s closed so only our clients have access to our commercial property,” Di Bella says.

Di Bella Coffee also takes many initiatives to make sure its team is happy, respected and gets the recognition they deserve. The company has an internal rewards program called PACII, Passion Accountability Consistency Inspiration and Integrity. Through this program, staff members can vote for each other based on those core values. With this system, staff members can show appreciation for each other, while maintaining a positive and motivating work environment.

FUTURE GROWTH

Keeping up with the company’s major growth rate, Di Bella Coffee recently entered the booming Asian coffee market, establishing headquarters in Shanghai, China. The company is currently looking to open up locations in surrounding countries, particularly India. Within a few weeks Di Bella Coffee will launch operations in Mumbai, India.

In addition to its international expansion, Di Bella Coffee plans to grow even further throughout Australia. By 2014, the company plans to be responsible for three million cups of coffee per week. Considering it’s already responsible for 2.2 million cups a week, Di Bella Coffee is well on its way to achieving that goal.