And the 2022 CMA Nominees are...

Wow! We had over 1200 people put forward their favourite coffee places and humans. It is took us a bit longer than we expected to get to the shortlist in our 18 Award Categories!

Thank you for your patience, we are very proud and very privileged to put forward the amazing coffee people and spaces this year. 

The Nominees certainly do reflect the year that was, a year of finding our way back out into a post-pandemic world and dealing with even more new challenges like a rising fuel and shipping crisis which has thrown the coffee value chain and pricing into a complete tailspin. But the resilience is inspiring and more than ever, cafes are places that comfort and uplift and we are grateful to every single person in the industry from the amazing baristas who make us smile everyday to the importers of beans who are dealing with more stress than we could ever imagine!

We took great care to go through ALL the nominees and we think the shortlisted are all incredibly worthy of recognition.

How are the winners selected from here?

The panel that decides is a brains trust of industry professionals that has been growing each year through this platform. Past winners, people we respect, industry leaders. We have compiled the voting form with info on why and how each company/person has been nominated, on which the panel will vote. This is not a popularity competition and is to celebrate industry professionals so the public/customers are not voting. Like at the Oscars, the Academy decides from the shortlist of nominees. We also take into consideration that people involved in a category cannot vote for themselves in that category. 

Thank you to the Sponsors who support this initiative and help us to celebrate the industry at large.

Over the coming weeks we will be unpacking exactly what each category represents and tell you a little bit more about each of the nominees leading up to the Coffee Magazine Awards evening in Cape Town, 3rd December 2022.