Full of Beans
		With a Starbucks on every corner, common wisdom has it that the coffee industry has reached saturation point. But Andrea Illy, CEO of Trieste-based Illycaffè, has a novel idea to grow his company: in a world of brand extension and gimmickry, Illy’s idea is simple – it’s to sell people the perfect cup of coffee Wallpaper, April 2001 ‘Espresso,’ says Andrea Illy, ‘is only good when it is perfect. If the water is too hot, the coffee burns and tastes bitter; too long an extraction time and the espresso is acidified. To prepare the perfect espresso, you need to be an artist. The Italian barista is an artist.’ Andrea Illy is CEO of Illycaffè, the Trieste-based coffee company founded by his grandfather in 1933. Illycaffè is best known for marketing a single, and in its opinion perfect, blend of espresso ground coffee to cafés, bars, restaurants and supermarkets around the world. Like his father Ernesto, who took over the company in 1963 (‘He spent his whole life researching coffee’), Illy the Younger trained as a chemist and, when he became CEO in 1994, he resolved to continue the company’s dedication to improving coffee through science. To this end, Illycaffè’s latest venture is the opening of Caffè Illy, a minimalist ‘coffee laboratory’ in Trieste’s via delle Torri, designed by London-based architect Claudio Silvestrin. The site is a testing ground for Illycaffè’s latest ideas – from coffee quality to service, seating, ambience, lighting and music. Its results are fed back to the company’s ‘University of Coffee’ in Naples and from there to the 30,000 or so independent bar managers that make up Illycaffè’s core customer base. ‘We are studying the way coffee shops are designed,’ says Illy, ‘to create an environment that produces a warm ambience but does not interfere with the messages that are central to the coffee itself. Things like gifts and merchandising simply distract from the experience of the espresso – and chocolates and pastries can produce their own smells that cover up the smell of the coffee. Of course you want to sell them too, but you need to know how to manage the relationship between the food and the coffee, something many people do not get right.’ Illy has a scientist’s eye for this process. ‘There are so many aspects of an espresso that you need to get right,’ he says, counting them off on his fingers. There’s the blend (100 per cent arabica), the amount of coffee you use (6.5- 7 grams for a 30cc cup), the pressure used to tamp the coffee down (20kg), the dimensions of the coffee cake (a ratio of 5cm across to 1cm deep), the temperature, pressure and hardness of the water (88-92°C, nine atmospheres and nine French degrees) and the extraction time (30 seconds). Add to that how you grind it (not too coarse or the espresso will be watery, not too fine or it will burn) and the size of the holes in the filter (‘too complicated to go into’) and you can see why a Starbucks double macchiato only rarely lives up to the dark nectar they serve on the via Montenapoleone. Unsurprisingly, Illy has little time for the Anglo-Saxon enthusiasm for flavoured coffees. ‘There are more than 1,500 flavours in coffee itself,’ he says, ‘and each contributes to the taste of an espresso. There is no reason to add flavours – unless, of course, there are defects in the coffee. But then you should remove the defects rather than cover them up.’ Illy has nothing against the likes of Starbucks. In fact, he is remarkably polite about his competitors. But he himself has no plans for an Illycaffè on every street corner, because, he says, the quality inevitably falls. ‘You need to own the coffee shops yourself so you can keep the quality high,’ he says. ‘With franchises [the Starbucks model], you lose that control.’ Instead Illycaffè uses its network of corporate customers – mostly independent restaurants and cafés – to expand and perfect its brand. ‘Our sales staff act as coffee consultants,’ says Illy. ‘They will help a restaurant owner perfect the espresso he or she serves, advising on the machine, the water, the pressure and so on. In return we constantly receive feedback from our customers, which helps us refine the product further and spread Illy coffee around the world.’ Nor has Illycaffè forgotten its home users. This month, the company is launching a new version of its pressurised packaging with an opener that will cut down on the famous ‘Illy explosion’ of coffee grounds all over the floor. According to market research company Allegra Strategies, the ‘branded coffee chain sector’ in the UK grew by 54.4 per cent between 1997 and 2000. There are now 1,300 branded coffee outlets in the UK, serving 3.9 million cups of coffee a week and the sector is expected to grow still further – by 22.4 per cent each year until 2003. The US and Japan have seen similar growth. Against this tide, a company like Illycaffè would appear to stand no chance. Illycaffè turned over IL295bn ($139m) last year, Starbucks took $1.68bn. However in Spain, France and Italy, the home of espresso, there are virtually no chains at all and it is in this market that Illy sees his company’s future. ‘Milan has 1,021 cafés for a population of 1.4 million – independents who believe in quality coffee and a quality ambience. ‘People look for excellence, not standardisation,’ he says. ‘Starbucks has been very good at two things: building the coffee culture and developing the retail concept. We are taking those ideas further with our customers and adding to that the perfect cup of coffee.’Starbucks has just opened its first branch in Zurich – which puts it just one border away from an assault on Italy. We’ll see what happens when the US giant and the caffè cognoscenti finally come face to face. * Caffe Illy, Via delle Torri 2, Trieste, Italy, www.illy.com