RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Lavazza’s winning strategy
Lavazza Coffee Design has now celebrated its tenth birthday.
This important milestone is only the beginning!
More than a century of know-how dedicated exclusively to coffee and the research undertaken by the Training Centre over the past twenty years have been essential.
Let’s take a step back and remember the key stages along this pathway of excellence. Let’s start from the innovation: from that day — 110 years ago to be precise — when Luigi Lavazza created what was to become the Lavazza world, at Via San Tommaso 10.
Years of experimenting with flavour have made the Lavazza world unique in Italy and also on the international scene. It all began in 1989, when the company decided to create its own division responsible for training and educating food service professionals in order to guarantee the quality of the product until it is consumed.
The result was the Training Centre, which now has 45 international branches worldwide: the world’s largest coffee school. Towards the end of the 1990s, the market had to be stimulated with innovative products. The task was given to Training Centre Director Marcello Arcangeli. With the support of his team, and of Francesco Viarizzo in particular, he created a creative product development department. 1998 saw the launch of the first range of coffee-based products which was featured on the menu at San Tommaso 10, Lavazza’s high-class café in Turin.
These were followed by the cappuccino syrups, Milk Texture and finally the recipe collection I Piaceri del Caffè, the first real example of coffee design and the first real revolution in coffee since the post-war period.
In 2002, Lavazza began working with Ferran Adrià, chef at the Catalonian restaurant El Bulli, the cradle of avant-garde cuisine. The first result of this partnership was the streamlining of the research network at the Training Centre, which gained awareness of its role as an innovator. Adrià’s creativity and technical innovation on the one hand, and the Training Centre’s in-depth knowledge of coffee on the other. At Lavazza’s laboratory and the Taller at El Bulli, the various stages of liquid, solid, hot and cold were analysed. Coffee was transformed into sauces, frappés, flans, mousses, foams, ice-creams, granita, powder, jelly and then processed further.
One result was èspesso, solid coffee, and in the years to come this was followed by many other products developed as part of an ongoing exchange of skills and ideas. Coffeesphere, Coffee Caviar, Nitro Cappuccino… coffee tasting became a new way to enjoy the Italian ritual of espresso drinking, an experience which involves all five senses: taste, obviously, but also sight, smell, hearing and touch.
In 2005, the experimental laboratory set up at the Training Centre was named “Espresso Based Beverages and Know-How”. It was the official recognition of the strategic importance that new product development has acquired over the years.
In 2008, Lavazza ended its first decade of coffee design by opening the door to new partnerships: Coffee Lens was created together with one of Italy's top chefs, Carlo Cracco.
