Wish Magazine, The Australian September 2018

proud of turin

lavazza is a giant global force of a brand, serving almost 30 billion cups of coffee a year, but it still calls the piedmontese capital home.

Story carli phillips

84 . S E P /2018 . WISH

Marco, when it has been designed with the community in mind. At the heart of the hospitality and cultural hub is a garden piazza with two restaurants, the “informal gourmet” Condividere conceived by renowned food philosopher Ferran Adrià, and Bistrot, which doubles as a heavily subsidised employee cafeteria. There’s also an events space and interactive museum.

The former industrial district (the famous old Fiat manufacturing plant is nearby) has a multi-ethnic character and city mayor Chiara Appendino is encouraged by the development and its potential for urban regeneration. At the opening, attended by Italian actors, socialites, civic representatives and journalists from across Europe, she praised Lavazza for being “glocal”, expanding overseas but maintaining its roots and investing in the city, helping to keep Turin’s economy vibrant.

Marco, his siblings, and their cousins, vice chairman Giuseppe, 53, and his sister, Francesca, 49, are by and large the public faces of the company. They are the perfect representatives: approachable, personable and on message without the PR-speak. Giuseppe was the first to join the board of directors in 1991 while working in commodities for Phillipp Brothers in London, but it was his father and role model, the intensely private Emilio (affectionately nicknamed “Mr Espresso”), who was fundamental in transforming the modest business into a household name in the 1950s with smart campaigns regarded as some of the best in the country.

Like his father Beppe, Emilio had innovative creative ideas and a passion for art and design. It was his work with long-time collaborator, the legendary graphic designer Armando Testa, that caught the public’s attention. The pioneering advertiser created the endearing Caballero and his girlfriend Carmencita, a couple of “moka pot”-shaped, sombrero-wearing characters in a comic TV soap opera. Giant sculptures of these beloved figures stand sentry in the otherwise sterile lobby of Nuvola. They are a warm welcome at the intimidating 30,000sqm campus, but much like the family itself, are a charismatic chink in the armour of propriety that comes with being a billion-dollar global company. In the past, Giuseppe has admitted that the second and third generations of Lavazzas were expected to join the family fold, but that his sister, and cousins Antonella, Marco and Manuela joined voluntarily. Together, they have helped steer operations into 90 countries through subsidiaries and distributors.

“We are global while staying independent and

Clockwise from top: Lavazza’s Nuvola headquarters and café; the Bistrot cafeteria; the swirling internal staircase; a Lisa Hoke installation; Bistrot’s upper floor; Caballero and Carmencita in the Nuvola lobby

Andrea Guermani

T

he Lavazza coffee dynasty’s private offices are more like a hotel lobby, replete with a chunk of the Berlin wall embedded in a 1920s Parisian bar, suede couches for schmoozing and coffee paraphernalia from the 1800s. A weak soy latte is not the coffee to order from the family’s private barista – if only because Italians frown on so much milk after mid-morning. So our conversation takes place over a small glass of Bavareisa Torinese, a decadent 18thcentury recipe with a base of hot chocolate, layered with espresso and topped with lightly stirred double cream.

When in Rome. Well, to be precise, when in Turin.

Sitting at the foot of the western Alps in Italy’s Piedmont region, the pretty city tends to fly under the radar despite its beautiful piazzas, palaces, chocolate shops and sophisticated historic cafés. It’s been home to Lavazza coffee since 1895 when patriarch Luigi Lavazza began blending beans of different origins out the back of his grocery store. It was his enterprising sons, Beppe, Mario and Pericle, who brought it to market in 1949, pre-packaging coffee in branded bags instead of selling it loose. It’s a true rags-to-riches tale: last year the company turned over €2 billion ($3.1bn).

Lavazza sits alongside Barilla, Zegna and Alessi as one of the few medium-large Italian companies still wholly family-owned. Helmed by the fourth generation and presided over by 78-year-old chairman Alberto, it employs more than 3000 people worldwide and serves an estimated 27 billion cups of coffee annually. In April, the thriving business cut the red tape on its new multipurpose Nuvola (“cloud”) headquarters encompassing an office building and public facilities including the Institute of Applied Arts and Design. It has taken 10 years from inception to completion (delayed briefly in 2014 by the discovery of an underground 4th-century basilica) and is the company’s largest project to date.

Designed by architect Cino Zucchi, the sleek complex is on the site of an abandoned power plant and is unlike anything the historic city – with its cobblestone streets and baroque buildings – has ever seen. “It’s not a skyscraper, but it had to be contemporary, it had to be new,” says vice president Marco Lavazza, 41. “So, we made it more horizontal rather than vertical, at the same level as all the other houses in Turin.” Architecturally speaking, the council could have objected “but when someone says ‘I want to invest €120 million on a new facility,’ they normally don’t say no”. Especially, says

W I S H . SEP /2018 . 8 5

“You can get a lovely coffee [in Australia] but sometimes I see it can go too fast. Coffee is meant to be slow.”

Luigi Lavazza, and advertisements and coffee tins from 1927 to 1962

although capitalising on trade and modernity we still have the Piedmontese spirit to contribute and give a boost of confidence to our city and territory,” says Giuseppe of his staunchly Torinese family. Although management is entrusted to outside executives, Giuseppe says they still have to abide by the family’s values and morals. “But as family members we [also] have to respect the chain of command in the organisation ... we are not allowed to disturb the operations,” he said at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year forum in 2016. While the fourth generation is on the board of directors, they prefer to reach a decision internally and unanimously, going to the board in agreement rather than divided. “It keeps the family close and connected ... it’s also very efficient.”

Before joining the company in 2001, Marco studied overseas and worked within the marketing division at Italian mega-confectioner Ferrero. Yet he recalls that from a very young age he had a fascination with how his father prepared coffee. “My father had a coffee machine since the very start. They weren’t very popular at the time, but he put so much attention into how he pressed it, into every detail. I was always curious about coffee but a bit frightened. I also started drinking coffee late as I was allergic to milk so had tea and decaf 86 . S E P /2018 . WISH

at university. My father helped me to understand, but I was not obliged to come here, it was a pleasure because of the family bonds. He taught me everything and then I got involved. It’s in my DNA. And I still don’t drink milk so for me it’s always espresso.” Marco, who is also the Food Products Chairman for the Industrial Union of Turin, knows that drinking coffee black isn’t for everyone, which is why Lavazza has perfected every type of espresso-based beverage.

“Mocha, filter, drip, instant ... when we launched in the US they were crazy about the cappuccino so we tried to engineer a machine that frothed the milk in a particular way so you could see the milk and the cream of the milk. It was all divided, it was perfect. And then we discovered that most of the time Americans serve cappuccino inside a cup so you don’t see anything anyway! We wanted it to be perfect, but that may have been taking it too far.”

The company has been expanding its operations consistently, purchasing France’s Carte Noire (2015), Denmark’s Merrild (2015) and a majority stake in Canada’s 100 per cent fair trade and organic Kicking Horse Coffee (2017) and Italy’s Nims (2017). In 2015, they cut ties with their Australian distributors Valcorp after three decades. Owned by Melbourne’s Valmorbida

family, both sides say the split was amicable. The move aligned the company’s global strategy of establishing subsidiary businesses in foreign markets, of which Australia ranks as the 5th-largest outside of Italy. Marco attributes this success to Australia’s “amazing melting pot of people with all the palates of the world”.

When in Melbourne for the Australian Open (Lavazza has partnered with all four Grand Slam tournaments) he visits stockists undercover but also frequents other cafés to observe techniques and local drinking habits, many of which involve paper takeaway cups. “You [Australians] are curious and put in a lot of effort but there are lots of different aspects when you look at a barista,” he says. “It doesn’t just have to be cool.

It has to be the passion, the willingness to learn. You can get a lovely coffee but sometimes I see it can go too fast.

Coffee is meant to be slow. When you’re cooking, you can’t just go up to the flame. Coffee is the same. You have to respect the time to learn the different products, the different types of methods.”

His strategy has been to home in on the idea of provenance, reflecting an Italianità and enabling consumers to bring some of the “charm experienced out of home, into the home”, says Silvio Zaccareo, APAC business unit director and Lavazza Australia managing director. He says that Australia’s sophistication in the coffee market is reflected in the rise of coffee capsules and “beans and ground”. Zaccareo says that in his 15 years with the company working in Italy, Argentina, India and the UK, he has never seen potential for growth like that in Australia. “We have 16-year-olds buying takeaway coffee after school – their palettes are far more developed at a younger age. As a result, the demand is growing for real coffee in the home, at work and in cafés.”

Lavazza has even tried its hand in space, sending the first ISSPresso into the atmosphere in 2015. It’s just one of the many pieces on display at its new Nuvola multimedia museum. Designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the hope is that it will be a drawcard for tourists and in turn, revive the surrounding Aurora neighbourhood. Spaces weave in and out of personal histories, coffee production processes, industrial 20thcentury Italy and an “atelier” showcasing a vault of creative collaborations including the famous company calendars (photographed by the likes of David LaChapelle, Helmut Newton and Annie Leibowitz), life sized autobar truck and hundreds of pots, cups and memorabilia from decades of collaborations including partnerships with the Guggenheim and the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. There are informative exhibits on Lavazza’s myriad international environmental and sustainability projects, such as ¡Tierra!, a program dedicated to improving living conditions and profitable agricultural practices among small-scale farmers. Currently, the firm is working with competitor Illy to map the genome of the Arabica bean.

It’s a lot to absorb, but information can be stored on a digital coffee cup along the way, culminating in coffeebased bar, L’Universo. As Luigi used to say: “Coffee isn’t just a drink, it’s a way to spend time together.” W