Breaking Bread: Fleur Studd - Market Lane Coffee

In our line of work, we get to meet a lot of interesting people (you never know who’s going to walk through the door). One of the most fulfilling – and inspiring – parts of what we do is that we’re able to surround ourselves with people who carry themselves the same curiosity and creativity we try to bring to what we do at Attica.

‘Breaking Bread’ is a recurring series where we sit down with some of those people and hear about how they approach their passion. Today, we are talking to our very dear friend, supplier, and business inspiration, Fleur Studd from Market Lane Coffee.

Have you always had a love for coffee and hospitality? Where did that come from?

I have always had a love of food! From a young age, my siblings and I were encouraged to be adventurous with food and flavour; shared food experiences brought us together as a family.

My dad is an avid gardener, so most of our veggies came from the garden. I have very fond memories of digging, planting and picking alongside my dad in the veggie patch, and standing by my mum’s side in the kitchen, propped up on a stool, helping her crack eggs, chop and stir (and lick the bowl). Our holidays often revolved around food, too – in discovering a new town or city, we would go out of our way to seek out artisan cheesemakers, winemakers or local markets, and some of my favourite childhood memories are the picnics we would have on the side of the road with the new and exciting ingredients we’d found along the way.

I landed my first hospitality job when I was 15, working as a waitress for a small family-run restaurant in the back streets of Beaumaris. The owner, Guida, was a force – she had boundless energy and was larger than life, welcoming every customer that walked through the door with a huge smile and, invariably, a warm hug. I adored my time working with Guida and learnt so much from her. I was very young but she threw me right in the deep end; she taught me how to give genuine and empathetic service and how to own my (many) mistakes and graciously recover them, and she showed me endless kindness and patience. I fell in love with great coffee in my early twenties while living in London. I frequented a very special coffee shop called Monmouth, based in Borough Market. Monmouth sourced and roasted their own coffee, and the way they served and talked about coffee was unlike anything I’d experienced before. As I worked my way through their extensive coffee line-up and read their beautiful and insightful backgrounds on each of the coffees they served, I began to appreciate how things like a coffee’s country and region of origin, variety, and processing method can influence its flavour in the cup. My mind was blown, and I was hooked!

For anyone who’s not familiar, what is Market Lane Coffee? And why did you start the company?

Market Lane is a coffee roastery and retailer with nine coffee shops, all based on Wurundjeri country in Naarm/Melbourne. We have been in operation since 2009.

It’s hard to imagine now – as the coffee industry has radically changed over the last couple of decades! – but the coffee landscape in Melbourne looked very different when we first opened our doors. While there was a vibrant café coffee culture, there was very little transparency and no understanding of freshness or seasonality, and access to high quality green (unroasted) coffee was virtually non-existent. We wanted to change that! 

In 2008, I established Melbourne Coffee Merchants and began importing the best green coffee I could find, supplying it to coffee roasters across Australia. And then, a year later, I opened up Market Lane Coffee at Prahran Market alongside Jason Scheltus and Jenni Bryant (who joined us soon after opening). Our goal from the beginning was to set a very high standard for coffee in Melbourne and, at the same time, to make great coffee accessible and exciting, simple to understand and appreciate, and easy to brew and enjoy. 

Market Lane is known for being rigorously committed to sustainability from its inception. Why is that?

To be honest, I can’t imagine running a business without that being one of our core values.

It’s of crucial importance to me, and my business partners at Market Lane, Jenni and Jason, feel the same. As a trio, we are very aligned in our values and these have always informed the way we buy coffee, the people we work with, and how we run our business. Over the years, this has made navigating decision-making easier, and it’s definitely part of the magic that makes us work so well together and love what we do.

From the get-go, we have been deeply committed to buying coffee in a sustainable and socially responsible way. The people who plant, grow, pick and process the coffee are at the most vulnerable part of our value chain, and it’s of paramount importance to us that producing coffee and selling it to us improves their livelihoods and their quality of life in a meaningful and sustainable way. As a business, we have always avoided the old commodity model of coffee-buying. We pay our suppliers high premiums that sit significantly above the commodity market and Fair Trade price floors. We work to establish transparent, long-term relationships with our coffee suppliers, and we aim to visit them every year; spending time with them, working to understand their priorities, challenges and needs, and helping them mitigate their risk. This might mean pre-committing to a coffee ahead of the season, or working with them to grow a bigger market for their coffees in Australia.

Environmental sustainability has also always been a core value and, as the business has grown, we’ve had more capacity to invest time and effort into finding better ways to do things. Our head office and roastery are powered by solar panels and, in 2020, we became carbon neutral across our entire supply chain. Right now, our efforts are focused on reducing our reliance on single-use packaging – last year, after two years of research and testing, we switched to paper recyclable bags for our coffee beans, and in our shops we’re offering our customers Returnr cups to ‘borrow’ instead of takeaway cups.

Our commitment to being a sustainable and responsible business also led to us becoming a B-Corp certified business, like Attica!

Who do you look up to?

Oooo, this is a good question! A lot of people – too many to list here – but here are a couple!

One of my biggest early influences was my dad, Will Studd. I watched him over the years build up a market for specialty cheese in Australia, and tirelessly advocate for changes in regulations to allow raw milk cheeses to be produced in, and imported to, this country. He has always been wildly passionate about what he does and takes an uncompromising approach to quality, which is inspiring and has definitely informed the way I approach what I do, as well.

 In coffee, Anita Le Roy of Monmouth Coffee in London has undoubtedly been my biggest influence and all-round coffee hero. She is a pioneer in specialty coffee in the UK (and leads Monmouth (which has been in operation for over 40 years!) with integrity, humility and a deep commitment to fostering and honouring longstanding and meaningful relationships with producers. I was lucky to work with her at the start of my coffee career, and so much of my approach to both business and coffee has been informed by Anita’s wisdom and vision.

Were there any creative challenges that you had to overcome when establishing the business? And how did you overcome them?

When we first opened Market Lane, we knew we had a big task ahead of us in educating customers and building a market for specialty coffee in Melbourne, and Australia more broadly. At the time, coffee was largely viewed and treated as an undifferentiated product; a commodity. We wanted to change this, and pioneer a new way of thinking about coffee and appreciating it, by building direct relationships with quality-focused producers and sharing their coffees with the Australian coffee-drinking community.

Education and transparency have been a key part of our approach from the beginning; we try to share as much information as possible about each coffee we sell, from the custom-made postcards we provide with coffees in-store to events, classes, tastings and talks. A lot of thought has also been put into the location and design of our shops; all are located in bustling food precincts, and our retail beans and filter brewing stations are prominently placed within each space to encourage customer engagement and inquiry.

Nothing makes me happier than when a customer seeks out a particular coffee by name (which is usually the name of the producer or the farm where it was grown) or gets excited to see it return to our shelves when it’s in season. Those moments are my proudest, as they’re the ultimate sign that we’re achieving what we aim to, and doing a good job.

You are a super committed and hard worker. What do you like to do in your spare time to relax?

I love spending time with my husband Simon and our two kids. Our weekends are pretty sacred – we try to switch off work and be really present as a family. Another joy is cooking for dear friends and spending time around a dinner table, sharing delicious food and wine, having a great conversation and laughing hard. It doesn’t get much better than that!

You’ve been to Attica many times. How does it feel to see your coffee, out of your hands, served in our dining room?

Extraordinary. And a dream come true!

So much care, hard work and effort is put into producing exceptional coffee – from the people that grow, hand-pick and process it to our team here who carefully roast and taste it, and then to the wonderful team at Attica, who carefully brew and share it with their guests.

When we visit our producing partners each year, we tell them who is serving and enjoying their coffee. It always brings them an enormous sense of pride and purpose to learn that their coffee is being served in one of the best restaurants in the world!

One of my favourite moments (ever) was having the opportunity to introduce Sam Muhirwa, a producer from Buf Coffee in Rwanda, to the Attica team. The conversation that flowed between Sam and the team lasted for several hours, and it was so special to witness. The Attica team were so curious and engaged and they talked with Sam at great length about his family’s story, how he and his Mum (Epiphanie, the founder of Buf Coffee) approach coffee production, and what makes their coffee so special. It was amazing to see Attica invest and dedicate so much time and focus to just this one element of their menu. It reinforced why our relationship with Attica is so special.

Over the years, that relationship has blossomed and grown into much more than a wholesale coffee partnership. We have a deep respect for, and feel such a strong alignment with, Attica’s fundamental values and the way Ben, Kylie and the team enact and live those values, through the restaurant and through all their relationships and activities. We’ve collaborated with Attica on bakesales and fundraisers for NSW flood relief and for Children’s Ground, and Ben has also been a part of our Leadership in Hospitality conversation series. Attica is one of the world’s best restaurants and the team are deeply engaged with and committed to what they do, so I’m always amazed that we can call up and say, ‘hey we’re doing this thing that’s important to us’, and the Attica team will always show up and be there, giving it their all.

Melbourne is widely recognised as the ‘coffee capital of the world’. Why is that and what makes a great Melbourne-style coffee?

We’ve had an established and vibrant café culture in Melbourne for a long time, thanks to the Italian community who migrated here in the 1950s and brought their love of espresso with them. In many ways, this is what still defines the Melbourne coffee scene and makes it so special – customers value going out for coffee and connecting over coffee, and Melbourne’s cafes are always full and bustling.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen the Melbourne coffee scene be elevated to another level altogether, thanks to the proliferation of small coffee roasteries that have popped up across the city – with much better access to high quality green coffee than before – and, with them, the emergence of hundreds of specialty coffee shops delivering a wide range of special and unique coffees. As a result, Melbournians now tend to really appreciate coffee as a differentiated beverage and seek out and expect coffees that are distinctive and memorable. The spaces where coffee is served here are beautiful, too. We’re really spoilt for choice with fantastic roasters and coffee shops that serve exciting and exceptional drinks.

So, what makes a great Melbourne-style coffee? It’s many things. For it to be great, the beans need to have been responsibly sourced and roasted with care, and the barista should be able to tell you where the coffee is from and what makes it special. In most specialty cafes now, there will be great filter coffee available to brew on request. But, this being Melbourne, the bestselling coffee is still the classic flat white.

Visit Fleur and her team here