Industry Challenges

From shifting regulations to climate change, the coffee industry faces a wide range of pressures that affect farmers, traders, and consumers alike. In this panel, we’ll discuss practical solutions and strategies for navigating these challenges.

Vincent Rikken is the co-founder of Baristocrats, a event coffee company serving sustainable coffee at festivals and events. He’s also behind Cascara Cabinet, a sparkling prebiotic soda made from the coffee cherry—bringing circularity to specialty coffee.

Guus Bremer is a Green Coffee Trader / Importer & Distributor and is at working DRWakefield since 2019. He is a Q grader and works closely with farms and cooperatives worldwide. In 2022 he relocated back from London to the Netherlands to run the Amsterdam office and Antwerp warehouse operation for their EU customers (roasters).

Henk Langkemper is the co-owner Espresso Service West B.V., La Marzocco distributor for The Netherlands and the owner of the Henk Langkemper Collection of 500 exhibits that tell the history of espresso.

The talk is moderated by Jessica Haak. As both a competition barista and AI graduate student, Jessica sits at the intersection of craft and computation—exploring how technology can serve, not replace, the art of coffee. Jessica is a freelance barista based in Amsterdam and placed 3rd at the 2025 Dutch Latte Art Championship, as well as a finalist for the 2026 Dutch Latte Art Championship. While working in the Dutch coffee scene, she is studying her masters in artificial intelligence at Utrecht University. As she furthers her education and her barista skills, she tries to explore how the worlds of coffee and AI can be combined, reading into research combining the two and, as of recent, through an internship at ROEST. She brings both technical expertise and hands-on coffee experience to conversations about technology's role in specialty coffee.

This talk is in Dutch.
No registration required. Just make sure you grab a festival ticket here.