Luigi Lavazza (; 24 April 1859 – 16 August 1949) was an Italian businessman. In 1895, he founded the

Lavazza Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. (), shortened and stylized as LAVAZZA, 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 (Italian: ...

coffee company in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Biography

Lavazza was born in

Murisengo Murisengo is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about east of Turin and about northwest of Alessandria Alessandria (; pms, Lissandria ) is a city and ''comune'' in Piedmont, Ital ...

, a small city in the

province of Turin The former Province of Turin ( it, Provincia di Torino; pms, Provinsa ëd Turin; french: Province de Turin) was a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital was the city of Turin. The province existed until 31 December 2014, when it wa ...

(

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

). The origins of the Lavazza firm go back to 1895, when Luigi Lavazza purchased a little

grocery A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, an ...

store, Paissa Olivero, in the old commercial section of

(Northern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

). The purchase was made for 26,000 Italian Lire, or about US$20. In those times such stores operated as both

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

and production outlets. The

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

, sold among thousands of other products, was bought raw, and then

roasted Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization ...

and blended according to very personal

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. His ...

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 Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. In ...

trade (1910), the joining of Luigi's three sons Mario, Beppe and Pericle (during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

), and the progressive narrowing of the production range marked the first steps of an irresistible commercial growth, which enabled the company 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'

economic sanction Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they may ...

s, by the prohibition on the importation of coffee, and by the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, finally came to specialize in the production of coffee. The first Lavazza

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

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

is claimed to be the market leader of

espresso Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and ...

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.

References

External links

www.lavazza.com
1859 births 1949 deaths Italian drink industry businesspeople Businesspeople from Turin Businesspeople in coffee People from the Kingdom of Sardinia Lavazza {{italy-business-bio-stub

Biography

See also

References

External links