Background

About Wiara Coffee

Founded in 2018, Wiara Coffee is a specialty coffee roastery based in Durbanville, Cape Town, focused on small-batch roasting for coffee lovers, restaurants, offices, and businesses across South Africa. Their green beans are sourced from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Brazil, and Colombia — each origin bringing its own character to the roast.

Beyond roasting, Wiara offers wholesale supply to cafés, restaurants, and offices, barista training, coffee equipment solutions, and — significantly — private label (white label) coffee for businesses wanting to sell under their own brand. That private label side of the business is exactly where labelling became a bottleneck.

The Challenge

Minimum Orders, Long Lead Times, and Running Out of Labels Mid-Production

Before bringing label printing in-house, Wiara ordered all their labels from a traditional label convertor. With several different labels needed for their own blends, plus a separate label for every private label customer, the minimum order quantities made the whole arrangement expensive.

“There were minimum orders required and together with several different labels required for Wiara’s own blends as well as for the private labels, this proved costly. Another challenge was when receiving an order from a private label customer, there would be a long lead time from designing the label and then waiting for it to be produced by a label convertor.” — Ryno Turketti, Director

The operational knock-on was worse than the cost. On more than one occasion Wiara ran out of labels for a particular blend before the replacement order arrived — forcing the team to ship coffee under an alternative blend label just to fulfil the order. Special requests sat waiting, because roasted coffee simply cannot be supplied without a label on the packet.

“It also meant delays in supplying special request orders as the coffee produced couldn’t be supplied without a label.” — Ryno Turketti, Director

The Solution

Epson ColorWorks CW-C4000: One Label or Two Hundred, Printed On Demand

The ColorWorks range was introduced to Wiara by Hugh Davies of Zelva Consulting, who identified it as a direct fit for their in-house printing requirements. After assessing volumes and budget, the Epson ColorWorks CW-C4000 was selected — matching Wiara’s current label printing volumes while staying within the budget

“The fact that we were able to design and print labels as and when required and be able to print anything from one to a couple of hundred labels as well as print a wide range of SKUs was ideal. It also meant that we could eliminate long production lead times from traditional label convertors.” — Ryno Turketti, Director

Critically, nothing changed about how Wiara designs labels — they were already designing in-house using Canva, and the CW-C4000 slotted straight into that existing workflow. The only thing that changed was what happens after the design is finished: instead of sending it away and waiting, they print it immediately.

The Results

Same-Day Private Label Turnaround — and a Printer that Earns its Keep Elsewhere

The long lead times are gone entirely. Urgent and short-notice customer requests can now be designed and printed on the spot, which has materially improved the service Wiara offers — particularly on the private label side, which represents a large portion of the business.

“The supply of white label coffee is a large part of our business and the fact that we can now design a label for a customer, print it immediately and supply the labelled coffee packets quickly, has really enhanced the efficiency of the business.” — Ryno Turketti, Director

The flexibility extends beyond customer orders. When Wiara buys beans from a new source, a new label can be produced immediately rather than holding up the roast. And the printer has found uses the team didn’t originally plan for — asset labels for the company and shipping labels for outgoing orders.

Key improvements since installing the Epson ColorWorks CW-C4000:

• Label lead times from external convertors eliminated entirely
• Private label customers served same-day — design, print, pack, ship
• No minimum order quantities — print from one label to a couple of hundred
• Quick label changes when sourcing beans from a new origin
• No more running out of blend labels mid-production
• Additional uses discovered — asset labelling and shipping labels
• Integrates directly with the Canva design package Wiara already used

“We can do quick label changes which is important if we purchase beans from a new source and need to print a new label. The versatility of the Epson ColorWorks C4000 has allowed us to print labels for other applications other than the coffee packets. The C4000 is so easy to use and has integrated perfectly with the Canva Design package that we were using.” — Ryno Turketti, Director, Wiara Coffee

About Wiara Coffee — Specialty small-batch coffee roastery in Durbanville, Cape Town, supplying wholesale and private label coffee, barista training, and equipment solutions across South Africa.

Contact Ryno Turketti at ryno@wiaracoffee.co.za or call +27 72 594 6701
| wiaracoffee.co.za

Contact Ricardo Roux at wtcm@ricketybridge.com or call 021-8762994.

Solution provided by Zelva Consulting — Contact Hugh Davies at hugh@zelva.co.za or call 083 600 9951 | zelva.co.za