We're here to make coffee better, for everyone.
What we’re about
Common is a shared commercial roastery in Auckland, built on a simple idea: coffee gets better when people have access to the right space, the right knowledge, and the right people to learn from.
We've spent years working in coffee, roasting, sourcing, building businesses, and connecting people across the industry. What we know is that coffee gets better when knowledge and infrastructure are shared. So we built Common.
What we do
We offer contract roasting for established brands and hospitality groups who want consistent, quality roasting without running it themselves. We open the roastery up for hire to independent roasters and anyone wanting to get hands-on with commercial equipment. We run courses and events for people at every level, from total beginners to experienced roasters wanting to go deeper.
The equipment, the knowledge, the people. Open to everyone.
The people behind it
Chris Kastner
Head Roaster / Operations Manager
Chris wasn’t always a fan of coffee. It took a working holiday in Perth, a barista job in Canada, and a fair amount of stubbornness to turn that around.
Over ten years he worked his way from café floor to roastery, picking up barista, supervisory, and management experience along the way. He spent four years at Eighthirty, where his role grew to cover green bean sourcing, buying, cupping, quality control, roasting, and obtaining Fairtrade Organic certification for Kokako.
Now, he heads up roasting and operations at Common. Day to day, he's your main point of contact at Common.
Jordy Rimell
Director
Jordy’s been in coffee for over 20 years, working his way from barista to roaster to building his own brands.
He roasted in Auckland and Melbourne, learning from larger operations. More recently, he’s launched brands into Food Service across Australasia with distribution partners and driven sales within FMCG across markets.
Common grew out of Jordy's vision for what the industry was missing.
Lara Rimell
Financial Controller / A bit of everything
Lara came to coffee from service design and project management. She knows how to build systems that actually work and how to spot when they don't.
At Common, she looks after the numbers, the design, the marketing and most things in between. Her focus is making sure what Common offers is easy to access and worth coming back to.