Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Key takeaways
- Rising costs are pushing coffee equipment brands towards strategic collaboration.
- Grinding and extraction are now considered one connected process.
- The Mazzer x Slayer grinder launches at London Coffee Festival 2026.
- Long-term partnerships help brands innovate without losing their individual identity.
The coffee industry has always been competitive. Specialty coffee brands position themselves as the higher-quality alternative to multinationals and large chains, a distinction that demands constant product development and technical credibility.
But as green coffee prices remain volatile and the expectations of baristas and café owners grow more demanding, the investment required to bring genuinely new products to market rises with them. A growing number of businesses, including equipment brands and roasters, are concluding that working with competitors serves the wider industry better than working against them.
“Partnerships in equipment manufacturing are nothing new, but the growth in collaboration across the industry reflects a broader shift in how we understand coffee preparation,” says Jacopo Bambini, Group Marketing Director at Cimbali Group. “Rather than a series of separate stages, there is increasing recognition that grinding, extraction, and preparation form a single connected process.
“In specialty coffee in particular, the focus on precision, consistency, and repeatability has accelerated this thinking. As expectations from operators rise, especially around quality control and workflow efficiency, there is a natural move towards more integrated approaches and closer technical alignment between previously separate areas of expertise.”
By combining expertise, production facilities, and resources, equipment brands can develop products that neither could have reached independently, and in doing so, raise the standard for the wider coffee industry.
You may also like our article on how burr design is evolving.
Collaboration is trending in specialty coffee
Specialty coffee has long prized individual distinction. Roasters compete on sourcing, while equipment brands contend for engineering. Yet a growing number of cofee businesses are reaching the same conclusion: collaboration offers a more productive path forward than competition alone, particularly as the cost of bringing genuinely new products to market continues to climb.
This shift has been visible among roasters for several years. As costs have remained persistently high, the financial and operational burdens of innovation have pushed roasters to share risk by launching new products together rather than bearing the exposure independently.
Baristas and café owners, meanwhile, want more consistency, more control, and faster workflow without sacrificing quality. Meeting those demands requires a depth of expertise that is increasingly difficult for any equipment manufacturer to hold alone.
“There is an increasing focus, especially within specialty coffee, on system-based thinking, where grinding and extraction are no longer seen as separate steps but as parts of a single, integrated process,” says Jacopo. “Grinding, once treated as a preparatory step, has emerged as one of the most critical variables in coffee preparation.
“Against this backdrop, two of Italy’s most influential coffee equipment manufacturers, Cimbali Group and Mazzer, have announced a landmark partnership that signals a new chapter for professional coffee technology.”
The partnership brings together Cimbali Group’s expertise in espresso machines with Mazzer’s specialisation in grinding. Cimbali Group, which owns LaCimbali, Faema, Slayer, and Casadio, has decades of knowledge in espresso technology, while Mazzer contributes mechanical and burr engineering expertise.
“Both companies are family-founded and have built their reputations on technical expertise, reliability, and a commitment to continuous improvement rather than short-term trends,” Jacopo says. “This alignment in culture and values made the collaboration feel less like a commercial arrangement and more like a natural extension of our respective identities.”
Shared coffee expertise is pushing innovation forward
As the specialty coffee industry grows in both size and cultural relevance, collaboration has taken on greater significance. What began as a community-driven exchange has evolved into a strategic tool to increase brand loyalty.
Direct competitor collaboration also offers the potential for curated crossovers. Coffee equipment brands have opportunities to combine their respective strengths, audiences, and perspectives to create something that neither could produce alone.
The first product of Cimbali Group and Mazzer’s partnership is the Mazzer x Slayer grinder, which officially launched at stand HP29 at the 2026 London Coffee Festival, running from 14 to 17 May.
“The Mazzer x Slayer grinder is designed for specialty coffee shops and medium-to-high volume environments, combining advanced technology and operational efficiency,” Jacopo explains. “It features grind-by-weight functionality, an integrated load cell, 69mm conical burrs, and the new Mazzer ZZ burrs, developed with completely new geometries.
“These burrs are designed to reduce compressive force in favour of a larger cutting surface, achieving a more uniform grind and greater clarity in the cup.”
As research into burr design has demonstrated, excessive friction during grinding volatilises delicate aromatic compounds before extraction, resulting in coffee that lacks vibrant characteristics.
Cimbali Group’s acquisition of Keber, a Venice-based specialist burr manufacturer, in 2019 enabled the group to combine metallurgical expertise, precision engineering, and an artisanal approach to create high-performance burrs. Mazzer’s production facilities and knowledge of grinding mechanics now add a complementary layer of precision.
“The key innovation lies in rethinking grinding and extraction as a unified process rather than separate stages,” Jacopo says. “By designing these elements to work together as part of a single system, it becomes possible to achieve a higher level of control over brewing variables.”
Maintaining brand identity
Rather than treating collaborations as one-off opportunities, brands are increasingly engaging in long-term partnerships.
“The Cimbali Group-Mazzer collaboration will extend beyond a single product launch, unfolding through a long-term strategic partnership,” Jacopo says. “It represents the foundation of a broader industrial vision focused on deeper integration across coffee technologies.
“The long-term ambition is to move towards a fully aligned bean-to-cup ecosystem, where every stage of preparation is optimised as part of a cohesive system that supports operator needs for consistency, speed, and control.”
Yet simultaneously, brands need to retain their sense of individuality and indepenence.
“Slayer has a clearly defined identity within specialty coffee, particularly in how it approaches espresso as a craft-led, performance-driven experience,” Jacopo explains. “Rather than altering that identity, the collaboration focuses on ensuring that Mazzer’s grinding technology enhances and supports it.
“Both companies share a strong engineering culture and a commitment to precision, which allows for alignment at a technical level without compromising the distinct identity of either brand. The result is a more connected system where grinder and machine operate in sync.”
When costs are high and operators expect more from their equipment, sharing technical expertise makes more sense than duplicating it. Equipment brands that pool resources and knowledge are likely to build a stronger market position than those working alone.
Given the steady pressure to innovate in specialty coffee, we may well see more competitors choose to work together rather than apart.
Enjoyed this? Then read our article on how coffee shops can use advanced espresso machine technology to their advantage.
Photo credits: Cimbali Group
Perfect Daily Grind
Please note: Cimbali Group is a sponsor of Perfect Daily Grind.
Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our newsletter!
