Coffee is the mainstay of airport food and beverage, sought out by everyone from tired early morning travellers to couples relaxing before their evening flights.

In fact, coffee is so popular Airport Retail Enterprises (ARE) estimates around 30 per cent of airport customers buy a cup.

But while demand may always have been high, quality wasn’t.

In 1995, ARE became the first company in Australia to sell roasted and ground coffee in an Australian airport.

“Before that the standard airport coffee was an instant coffee with powdered milk,” said ARE Chief Executive Officer John Chapman.

“And it wasn’t cheap either, you would usually pay about $3.”

Sensing a shift in customer expectations, ARE decided to bring roasted and ground coffee to Brisbane Airport but acknowledged the decision was not without risk.

“The old instant machines could do five or six coffees a minute so there was no wait at all, but of course the quality wasn’t great,” Mr Chapman said.

“We started to see that the tastes of Australians had changed - café coffee was very popular and people would talk about airport coffee like it was a bit of a joke. “We knew they wanted roasted and ground coffee and we thought they were probably willing to wait that extra couple of minutes to have it all done fresh. “We were right, there was a huge queue for our coffee at Brisbane airport.”

The change was a vital one and it quickly spread to ARE outlets in other cities, as well as filtering more broadly through the rest of the industry.

“You get roasted and ground coffee in airports pretty much everywhere now,” Mr Chapman said.

“It was a big step at the time, but we haven’t rested on our laurels.

“Coffee is one of those basic items and for any business it is key to get the basics rights.”

To perfect that much sought after cup of coffee, ARE sourced beans from high-end coffee suppliers including Mocopan, Vittoria, Allpress and Five Senses, and employed mystery shoppers to rate the quality of products and service.

In 2008, ARE went a step further and established a company-wide barista competition with the support of Mocopan.

The competition involves a series of heats in various cities culminating in a grand final barista-off.

As part of the competition, the champion barista walks away with a significant prize – an all expenses paid, one-week trip to Italy for them and a guest of their choice.

“We wanted coffee service to be the area where staff wanted to be – we wanted it to be sexy and have attitude,” Mr Chapman said.

“Ultimately, we wanted staff to really care about the product they were putting out.”

2010’s competition winner Rheanne Dickason - who makes coffee at Sydney Airport’s Qantas Terminal - is due to collect her prize and fly to Italy on Boxing Day.

“I practised every day and I stayed back after work to practise,” she said.

“Participating in the competition showed me how much I didn’t know and how much extra I could learn.”