Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Michael Allpress, founder of Allpress Espresso.

If you take a step back and look at it, it’s kind of bananas that New Zealand went from no real cafe culture to having the flat white – a coffee that’s now ubiquitous around the world.

This episode of Business is Boring talks to a man who’s had as much to do with bringing great coffee here and then back to the world as anyone else in the country.

As a young entrepreneur 30 years ago, excited by the coffee culture he saw overseas, Michael Allpress opened up a small mobile coffee cart. Over the years, he helped to create and define the cafe scene that New Zealand first became famous for and then exported. Over three decades Allpress expanded from a cart to its own roastery, cafes, and international expansion to Australia, the UK, Japan, and Singapore. It’s taken partnerships, innovation, and some Kiwi can-do attitude to incubate the same culture they have here overseas.

To talk about helping make an industry, the journey to here, and what’s next, Michael Allpress joined the podcast early one morning, with a bag full of coffee goodies in hand.

Either download this episode (right click and save), have a listen below or via Spotify, subscribe through iTunes (RSS feed).