Lavazza renews its partnership with Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, an international event dedicated to good, clean and fair food, the environment and food politics, organised by Slow Food, the Region of Piedmont and the City of Turin.
Since it started working with Slow Food, the Company has embraced the philosophy of good, clean and fair and believes in the strategic importance of food education, both crucial to support product quality and ethical correctness.
Going back over 20 years, the partnership is based on deeply held values that led in 2021 to the creation of the Coffee Coalition, a network bringing together all the players in the coffee industry (producers, roasters, distributors and consumers), united by their love of coffee and inspired by the idea of good, clean and fair coffee for everyone, with the aim of maximising the reach of its collaborative network in the supply chain around sustainable development goals.
This shared vision was the basis for the partnership formed at the first Salone del Gusto, in 1996, when Lavazza not only decided to sponsor the event but embraced its philosophy and radical focus on product quality. Slow Food, the Terra Madre Salone del Gusto event and the partnership with Lavazza have been growing year by year ever since. The 2004 event, for example, saw the launch of ¡Tierra!, the Lavazza Foundation’s main social responsibility initiative, while in 2014 it was the turn of The Earth Defenders project, which used the Lavazza Calendar (photos by three contemporary masters: Steve McCurry, Joey L. and Denis Rouvre) to tell the public about modern heroes who protect their crops in ways that also protect the land.
There will be numerous forms of collaboration and initiatives during the event, all in line with the Company’s priority commitment to sustainable development.
For over 125 years in fact, Lavazza’s business model has been based on synergy between its system of values and its economic solidity, as reflected in its unceasing ethical and economic commitment to sustainability. In the last 20 years, efforts in this direction have been sharply accelerated, first with the creation of the Lavazza Foundation in 2004, which now supports 32 projects in 20 countries and benefits over 136,000 coffee growers, with the aim of improving coffee yield and quality, promoting entrepreneurship among growers, empowering women and young people, and improving their living conditions. 2015 was another key year, with the voluntary publication of the first sustainability report and the launch of a programme to integrate sustainability into the Company’s business operations, consistently with the soon to be endorsed 2030 Agenda of the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In 2020, the programme was renamed Blend for Better, expressing an approach to Corporate Social Responsibility that stems from Lavazza’s founding values and translates into today’s sustainable development strategies and initiatives.
Lavazza Group
Lavazza, founded in Turin in 1895, has been owned by the Lavazza family for four generations. Today the Group is one of the leading players on the global coffee scene, with turnover of over € 2.3 billion and a portfolio of top brands that lead their respective markets, such as Lavazza, Carte Noire, Merrild and Kicking Horse. It is active in all business sectors and has operations in 140 markets, with 9 manufacturing plants in 6 countries and over 4,200 collaborators all over the world. The Group’s global presence is the result of over 125 years of growth and the more than 30 billion cups of Lavazza coffee produced every year are a testament to a remarkable success story, with the goal of continuing to offer the best coffee possible, in all forms, by focusing on every aspect of the supply chain, from the selection of the raw material to the product in the cup.
Lavazza Group has revolutionised coffee culture by investing continuously in research and development: from the intuition that marked the company’s earliest success – the coffee blend – to the development of innovative packaging solutions; from the first espresso sipped in Space to the dozens of industrial patents. The ability to be ahead of the times is also reflected in the focus on sustainability – economic, social and environmental – which has always been a benchmark for guiding corporate strategies. “Awakening a better world every morning” is the corporate purpose of Lavazza Group, with the aim of creating sustainable value for shareholders, collaborators, consumers and the communities in which it operates, combining competitiveness with social and environmental responsibility.