Luigi Lavazza
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
businessman. He was the founder, in 1895, of the Lavazza
Lavazza
Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. 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.-...
coffee company in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
.
Biography
Lavazza was born in MurisengoMurisengo
Murisengo is a comune in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 35 km east of Turin and about 40 km northwest of Alessandria....
, a small city in the province of Turin
Province of Turin
The Province of Turin is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Turin.It has an area of 6,830 km², and a total population of 2,277,686 . There are 315 comuni in the province – the most of any province in Italy...
(Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
).
The origins of the Lavazza firm go back to 1895, when Luigi Lavazza purchased a little grocery store, Paissa Olivero, in the old commercial section of Turin (Northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
). The purchase was made for 26,000 Italian Lire, or about US$20.
In those times such stores operated as both retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
and production outlets. The coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, sold among thousands of other products, was bought raw, and then roasted
Coffee roasting
Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process is what produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to expand and to change in color, taste, smell, and density...
and blended according to very personal recipe
Recipe
A recipe is a set of instructions that describe how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish.-Components:Modern culinary recipes normally consist of several components*The name of the dish...
s depending on the customers' requests. This activity soon attracted the interest of Luigi Lavazza, who had already demonstrated considerable knowledge and skills in the processing of blends, including both the quantities of the ingredients and the degree of roasting. The firm's expansion from retailing to wholesale
Wholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...
trade (1910), the joining of Luigi's three sons Mario, Beppe and Pericle (during the First World War), and the progressive narrowing of the production range marked the first steps of an irresistible commercial growth, which enabled the Firm to acquire a notable position at regional level. The little grocery store became in 1927 the modern Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. that, after the forced stop caused by the League of Nations'
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
economic sanctions, by the prohibition on the importation of coffee, and by the outbreak of the Second World War, finally came to specialize in the production of coffee. The first Lavazza logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
was then created and the annual production reached 1,000 tons.
In 1936 Luigi Lavazza retired and left the company to his children. He died in 1949.
Since his death his family, from generation to generation, has devoted its energy to coffee and today Lavazza
Lavazza
Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. 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.-...
is claimed to be the market leader of espresso
Espresso
Espresso is a concentrated beverage brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee. Espresso is widely known throughout the world....
in Italy (with almost 45% of the total coffee market in 2004) and is present in over 60 countries. It is still based in Turin and is controlled by the fourth generation of Lavazza's descendants.