This year, it was Vincenzo and Enrico who had the pleasure of going to Host Milano 2023 in Italy. They spent a few days visiting the different kiosks and being on the lookout for the latest innovations in the world of coffee. Here is an overview of their experience at this international trade show.
Host Milano is the largest trade fair in the catering industry. It takes place every two years in the municipality of Rho, in Milan. This part of the metropolis was developed mainly to accommodate the hosting of trade fairs. It has grown enormously in recent years and now hosts trade shows almost every two weeks.
At Host, we find everything related to the world of catering, there is a Pizza section, a Kitchen section, and more pertinently, a Coffee section. There you will find roasting equipment, machines, mills, encapsulating machines and much more. Everything you need to go from the coffee bean to the final product, which is so appreciated by many!
From equipment to logistics, this exhibition is a must for access to new technologies and innovations related to coffee. You can even place orders for merchandise and equipment there. It is also an excellent opportunity for smaller companies to make themselves known and launch their machines and products. In short, this is the place to be for everything coffee!
This year, Vincenzo and Enrico spent five days at Host Milano, three of which were spent visiting the Rocket and Stone booth. Vincenzo says he was surprised by the size of the exhibition:
“What surprised me was the size. There are 24 sections, the route to get from the first [to the last] is almost a kilometer walk.”
The main reason for their trip was to visit the Stone and Rocket kiosk, two brands of the same company, which we import and distribute. Matter of fact, we are the official distributors of Stone in Canada and Rocket in Quebec! The exhibition gave them the chance to meet the manufacturer, as well as observe the new products to come. They also had the opportunity to visit the Eureka booth, a manufacturer of mills widely used at the commercial level.
Finally, they also took the opportunity to visit other equipment manufacturers, in order to observe what is being done by competitors.
The two main novelties that Vincenzo and Enrico were able to observe are two new residential machines by Rocket Espresso; the Bicocca and the Appartamento TCA. These will enter the Canadian market over the next year. Here's what we can tell you for now!
The Bicocca is a new residential double boiler machine with saturated group. It is ranked between the R58, which is worth around $4800, and the R91, which costs around $9,000. We can therefore expect a price halfway between the latter two. The Bicocca is equipped with a digital screen which will allow the user to play with the variable temperature profiles. It also has a more angular bodywork, which is reminiscent of the panels of the Giotto.
The Appartamento TCA (Temperature Control Adjusment), presents two new innovations compared to the previous model. Firstly, it no longer has a pressure switch, but rather a probe which allows the machine to detect the temperature in the kettle. Secondly, the user will be able to choose the temperature profile using four “positions”, ranging from the lowest (1) to the highest (4).
“For our customers who use beans that are sometimes a little lighter or a little darker and who want to play with the extraction to find another taste profile, this is a good way to do it,” explains Vincenzo.
Espresso machines continue to evolve and are more and more efficient, with that also comes the aesthetic side, which seems to be increasingly important. If in the past we saw almost identical machines, today's machines feature bold designs and come in several colors.
“There’s a lot of customization, [...] even at the commercial level, you can have machines with different finishes to really stand out, so that the machine [becomes] a subject of conversation in itself” Vincenzo tells us.
Finally, as a conclusion to the story of his first visit to Host Milano, Vincenzo recounts that after drinking, tasting and having way too much coffee during the five days spent at the expo, he concluded that at Barista, we make damn good coffee.😉
