Inside Melitta North America’s new M-Lab in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Photo by Michael Stavaridis, courtesy of Melitta North America.
A new hub for coffee innovation opened last summer in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, courtesy of Melitta North America.
The company cut the ribbon on a 4,500-square-foot coffee training, events and research center called the M-Lab alongside its roasting headquarters, and has subsequently been packing it with a steady slate of industry programming.
Photo by Michael Stavaridis, courtesy of Melitta North America.
“M-Lab is our primary focus, and the result of years of thoughtful planning,” Melitta North America Marketing Vice President Mike Brown told Daily Coffee News. “It represents a bold growth initiative designed to reinforce Melitta’s leadership in the coffee industry, supporting brands of all sizes, from emerging brands looking to scale to large national brands seeking additional production and development support.”
One of the first major gatherings at M-Lab was the National Coffee Association (NCA) Next Gen Coffee Challenge in September 2025, a hands-on team event in which young coffee professionals built mock brands from the ground up and pitched them to expert judges.
A panel discussion with (left to right) Todd Carmichael, Nikisha Bailey and Dan Pabst. Courtesy photo.
In November, M-Lab hosted a panel featuring La Colombe Coffee Co-Founder Todd Carmichael, Win Win Coffee Co-Founder Nikisha Bailey and Melitta North America Innovation and Product Development Manager Dan Pabst, with about 40 coffee people in the audience.
Last month, M-Lab hosted multiple education-focused events, including an SCA Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) for Cuppers course with participation from six certified Q Graders, including five from Melitta North America.
Participants at a recent CVA course for coffee cuppers. Courtesy photo.
The M-Lab is divided into what Melitta calls a collaboration space, a green coffee lab and a pilot production area. Programming spaces support hands-on training, blend development and beverage R&D, while the pilot production area is designed to help companies move from concept to product through small-scale roasting and packaging trials.
The M-Lab features a wide variety of equipment on-site, including superautomatic and bean-to-cup machines from the Melitta Professional portfolio and a barista bar equipped with a La Marzocco Linea PB X espresso machine. Commercial batch brewers, hot water towers, grinders, a pourover station and a kegerator add to the brewing equipment mix.
Photo by Michael Stavaridis, courtesy of Melitta North America.
The green coffee lab features a Probat 4-barrel sample roaster. Through a large glass window, M-Lab visitors can peer into the pilot production space centered on a Probat P60 roaster fed by a Sovda Lift system. A Probatino roaster is available for test batches.
Melitta’s Dan Pabst said the company is aiming to keep the calendar full in 2026 with expanded events, classes and services for industry and community audiences.
Photo by Michael Stavaridis, courtesy of Melitta North America.
Pabst said, “We’re curating a calendar of unique and diverse events for 2026 that will bring value to the industry, while at the same time offering well-established training and certification programs that have become mainstays for the industry.”
Melitta North America is part of privately held Melitta Group, based in Germany. The company — which includes subsidiary Melitta USA, a distributor of Melitta coffee filters, packaged coffees and pourover brewers — has been roasting in Cherry Hill for more than 50 years.
Photo by Michael Stavaridis, courtesy of Melitta North America.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
