Lavazza

Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.

Type	Private
Industry	Retail Coffee
Founded	Turin, Italy
Headquarters	Turin, Italy
Key people	Alberto Lavazza, President; Antonio Baravalle, CEO
Products	Whole Bean Coffee Merchandise
Revenue	€1.47 billion (2015)
Number of employees	2,700
Website	www.lavazza.it

Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. (Italian pronunciation: [laˈvattsa]) is an Italian manufacturer of coffee products. Founded in Turin in 1895 by Luigi Lavazza, it was initially run from a small grocery store at Via San Tommaso 10. The business of Lavazza S.p.A. is currently administered by the third and fourth generation of the Lavazza family.

Lavazza imports coffee from around the world. Countries include Brazil and Colombia in South America, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras in Central America, Uganda in Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam in Asia and the United States and Mexico in North America. Sustainable production concerns have led the company to develop the ¡Tierra! project, a sustainable agriculture program in Honduras, Colombia, and Peru, that seeks to improve the quality of coffee as well as the environmental and working conditions of those communities.

Branded as "Italy's Favourite Coffee," the company claims that 16 million out of the 20 million coffee purchasing families in Italy choose Lavazza. Among its offerings today are products such as: Qualità Oro, Qualità Rosso, Club, Caffè Espresso, Il Perfetto Espresso, Caffè Crema, Gran Aroma Bar, Super Crema, Crema e Gusto, Crema e Aroma, Top Class, Grand'Espresso, Dek (decaffeinated), and coffee capsules A Modo Mio, "Espresso Point" and BLUE.

The company operates a number of retail coffee shops ("Il Caffè di Roma" and "Espression"). The shops offer traditional coffee drinks as well as whole bean and ground coffee for home use.

Lavazza, established in Turin, Italy in 1895, has been owned by the family of the same name for four generations. The world's seventh ranking coffee roaster, today Lavazza is the retail market leader in Italy with a market share by value of over 47% (source Nielsen), 2700 employees and sales of 1,340 mio euros (2013). The company has six production sites, four in Italy and two abroad, and operates through associated companies and distributors in more than 90 countries. Lavazza exports 46% of its production today. Lavazza credits itself with inventing the concept of blending, "the art of combining different types of coffee from different geographical areas", in its early years and claims this as a distinctive feature of all its products. The company also has 25 years experience in the production and sale of portioned coffee systems. Today, through ongoing partnerships with an international network of universities and scientific research centers, Lavazza operates four platforms in this segment. In 1979 the company established the "Luigi Lavazza Center for coffee research" which is "devoted to the study of espresso" and has evolved into the Lavazza Training Center, a network of over 50 coffee schools worldwide, where 30 thousand people receive training each year.