Lavazza North America, part of the Lavazza Group, an Italian global coffee company, begins construction of its first roasting and packaging plant in the United States. The new plant is scheduled to open in October 2021 and will serve the U.S. market.
The plant is an expansion of the Lavazza Professional plant in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which will complement existing and new capabilities for Lavazza to produce roasted and ground coffee in the United States, adding 1,000 square feet to the 18,000-square-foot facility. Strategically, the new plant will offer the opportunity to increase business, be more responsive in the U.S. market, and increase customer satisfaction.
"North America continues to be a strategic market for the Lavazza Group's growth, and the opening of this plant in the United States will strengthen our competitive advantage," said Davide Riboni, President & CEO BU Americas of Lavazza. "We will be able to serve our current customers more efficiently and offer incentives to attract new ones."
Until now, all of Lavazza's roasted and ground coffee for the U.S. market came from Italy, positioning the new plant to reduce Lavazza's carbon footprint through reduced shipments, in line with the Group's "Roadmap to Zero" that aims to fully neutralize the Group's carbon footprint by the end of 2030. The West Chester plant is a LEED Gold site, is zero landfill, and the first Lavazza Group site to achieve ISO 45001 certification. In the expansion, Lavazza will maintain the same environmental standards and site history.
Products at West Chester will meet all of Lavazza's brand quality standards, with the goal of providing consumers with a product that matches the brand's Italian taste. Lavazza is an Italian company founded in 1895 in Turin and has been owned by the Lavazza family for four generations, combining a desire to bring its authentic coffee experience to the world while preserving its Italian roots.
"This is a very important step for the Lavazza Group and for its future development in the United States, a country that has always been of fundamental importance to us," said Eleuterio Quagliarini, the Group's Chief Operations Officer. "In addition, the investment takes place within a production plant that we acquired a few years ago, which immediately proved to be the ideal context for developing this new Lavazza reality in the United States, thanks above all to the passion and expertise of the people who work there."
The Lavazza Group currently has 9 production plants in 6 countries (3 in Italy, one in France, USA, UK, Canada, India). With a history of more than 125 years, Lavazza has built on its Italian heritage and commitment to quality and innovation, establishing itself as an industry pioneer that is loved by coffee drinkers around the world. In recent years, the Lavazza Group has focused on strategic efforts to meet growing customer demand for premium coffee.
The Lavazza Group
Lavazza, founded in Turin in 1895, has been owned by the Lavazza family for four generations. One of the world's leading coffee roasters, the Group now operates in more than 140 countries through its subsidiaries and distributors, with 70 percent of its sales generated abroad Lavazza employs a total of more than 4,000 people and generated sales of more than 2 billion euros in 2020. Among the companies that are part of the Lavazza Group are France's Carte Noire and ESP (acquired in 2016 and 2017, respectively), Denmark's Merrild (2015), North America's Kicking Horse Coffee (2017), Italy's Nims (2017), and the business of Australia's Blue Pod Coffee Co (2018). At the end of 2018, following an acquisition, the Lavazza Professional Business Unit was created, which includes the Office Coffee Service (OCS) and Vending systems Flavia and Klix.
Source: PRNewswire