IN MEMORIAM OF JEAN-PAUL IN-ALBON

GLOBAL COFFEE REPORT FAREWELLS ONE OF THE CO-FOUNDING FATHERS OF MANUFACTURING COMPANY EVERSYS, AND HONOURS HIS LEGACY FOR AUTOMATING AUTHENTIC ESPRESSO.

Jean-Paul In-Albon passed away prematurely on 21 July 2021 at the tender age of 65, leaving behind a business, a body of work, and memories that shall ensure his life leaves an indelible mark in the world of coffee and beyond.

People often use words like visionary or entrepreneur to describe a person that does things ahead of their time. A visionary is a person who walks on paths that seem so clear, so simple to them and yet fail to be seen by the simple crowd. History is littered with such great people, from inventor Thomas Eddison and businessman Steve Jobs through to physicist Marie Curie, people who were born with a clear purpose and whose life was fully consumed by their true passion. And, for Jean-Paul In-Albon, this was coffee.

Jean-Paul was a visionary like no other in the automated world of coffee. His business partner Robert Bircher called him a true “inventor”. Jean-Paul had a passion for building simplicity into the traditional art of coffee making. Automation was his accomplice, transforming age old movements into precise mechanical and electrical impulses. And while he had spent the whole of his life imagining and developing leading edge coffee machines, his true apogee came through his latest brainchild, Eversys.

Jean-Paul began his journey in coffee with a company he founded called Sistar where he developed the concept of horizontal mechanical brewing. This was followed by a chance meeting with the owner of a small International Swiss company called Thermoplan, where he eventually became the head of the research and development department as Technical Director, making the B&W brand a global leader. This is where Jean-Paul truly came onto the international stage through developing a bespoke machine for an up-and-coming US company called Starbucks. In due course, and coming to an age when people think more about retirement than starting new projects, Jean-Paul started to feel that the boundaries of coffee making equipment had not yet been fully reached, that he could create something even more compelling.

In 2009, over a lunch that lasted several hours. Jean-Paul In-Albon and Robert Bircher founded Eversys.

There, began the final chapter of an amazing life, the building of a lasting legacy. What made Jean-Paul so special was his ability to imagine, to see, and to believe in a future where great coffee could be accessed by all people, anytime, anywhere. While there were many challenges along the way of building and developing a new company, fear and doubt were never part of his make-up. Jean-Paul was not only a man of great vision, but a man of great conviction and courage. Adversity was seen as a means to an end, as merely a necessary evil, a step on the way to inevitable success. This attitude, shared by most visionaries, was inspiring to all those that came into contact with him, generating tremendous team engagement and loyalty.

Eversys, like Jean-Paul, was birthed into a very humble environment. It all started in a very lowkey office, in a small place next to what used to be a butcher shop in a rustic Swiss village, Ardon, located in a region of Switzerland known as the Valais, a few blocks from where he raised a family. It is that humility that attracted people of all segments of life, as Jean-Paul treated everyone with equal respect and attention.

Such was his passion for coffee that JeanPaul could be found burning the midnight oil on most days, trying to replicate the flavour

Jean-Paul was a visionary like no other in the automated world of coffee.

profile of the organic bean through the brewing process. He would make people chew freshly roasted coffee beans to establish an idea of what the coffee should taste like and roar with laughter at the expressions of surprise when they were told to swallow. Jean-Paul was never afraid to challenge existing paradigms as, for most inventors, rules were only meant for those who lacked the imagination to ignore them.

Jean-Paul was a firm believer that a business, a team should be treated like family. And when the time came to entrust his Eversys to another company, he and Robert chose De’Longhi because they too embraced the concept of a family-driven business, a place where people genuinely mattered.

Jean-Paul In-Albon was quoted at the 2014 Swiss Economic Forum as saying: “People tend to focus on products, but it is the people who make the company.”

Even his departure seemed ‘planned’, buried in the same church where 45 years prior, to the

Jean-Paul developed the concept of day, he had made his wedding vows and said horizontal mechanical brewing. “yes” to his beloved wife, a woman who staunchly believed and stood by him in the course of pursuing his passion for coffee. And, while Jean-Paul has left our mortal realm, his legacy shall be enduring, as his passion continues to live throughout the globe, through the instruments that his imagination saw created and built. He was able to see his beloved company become a global player, build a new factory not far from where he took his first steps as a young boy, in the midst of the mountainous Alps where he often spent his weekends perched on the back of his bicycle.

Jean-Paul will be remembered as a person who will truly leave a lasting trail, sowing a seed that made a genuine difference. His legacy will be that of a humble man who chose to walk on the wild side of creativity, leaving behind a warm cup, a memory that with passion, purpose, discipline, and courage, one simple person can have an impact, and make an extraordinary difference to the planet we all call home.

To quote the words of Jean-Paul’s favourite author Umberto Eco: “We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. We like them because we do not want to die.” GCR

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