Stronghold Roasting Machine, Even Cafe Owners Are Impressed

Cost Reduction of 60-70% Compared to Buying Roasted Beans
Technology Chosen by World Champions... Beginners Can Also Achieve Consistent Flavor

Wo Jong-wook, CEO of Stronghold Technology

At the ‘US Coffee Championship (USCC)’ held last April in Boston, USA, Morgan Eckross, the winner of the barista category, and Elika Liftier, who took home the Brewers Cup, share one thing in common. They both used coffee beans roasted with the roasting machine ‘S7Pro.’ This machine, chosen by coffee champions worldwide, was made by Stronghold Technology, a domestic small and medium venture company. Stronghold’s technology, recognized globally, supports not only professionals but also self-employed caf? operators. Woo Jong-wook, CEO of Stronghold Technology, explained that self-employed individuals can actually reduce costs and increase sales with the smart coffee roasting machine.

On the 16th, CEO Woo said, "Using Stronghold’s roasting machine can reduce costs by 60-70% compared to purchasing roasted beans from caf?s." The issue of coffee bean costs in the market is also related to why CEO Woo, who did not originally enjoy coffee, entered this market. He saw problems such as the lack of transparency in the process of roasting and supplying green beans used in all coffee-selling stores, which leads to high prices and the circulation of poor-quality beans. He realized that there is much distortion in the roasting stage.

CEO Woo considered solutions to increase profits from green bean farms to self-employed individuals and consumers. He concluded that roasting at the store was the solution. To this end, he explained that they created an automatic roasting machine that anyone can use to roast delicious coffee. CEO Woo said, "Not only can existing costs be reduced, but in stores with labor shortages, other tasks can be done during the automatic roasting time, and roasted beans can also be sold."

Stronghold's Roasting Machine

Stronghold introduced a smart roasting machine in 2010, changing coffee roasting, which relied on gas heat and expert know-how, to electric heat and programming. There were already roasting machines using electricity, but Stronghold implemented differentiated automation technology. Coffee’s taste is very sensitive to small changes during the roasting process. The machine allows even beginners to roast with uniform quality. It also enables precise work by experts. This is why CEO Woo compares Stronghold to Tesla. He said, "Just as Tesla is the top brand among electric cars, Stronghold continues to develop technology to enhance the completeness of the automatic roasting function algorithm using electricity," and introduced that "they collect data from automatic roasting and update it."

This has become a competitive edge that has led to over 2,300 customers worldwide using the machine. It is recognized for its quality to the extent that it is used as the official machine at the World Coffee Roasting Championship. The innovation of convergent technologies in digital, mechanical design, and applied chemistry, as well as product competitiveness, have been recognized, successfully attracting investments from major domestic and international investors such as SoftBank Ventures and Mirae Asset Venture Investment.

Stronghold, which recorded about 10 billion KRW in sales last year, is expanding overseas sales starting this year. China is the largest market, followed by the United States, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe, where customers are also increasing. CEO Woo said, "Our goal is to replace 10% of the global coffee bean market with our solution," and added, "We also expect to launch a small machine targeting the home office market this year."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.