The culture of coffee is improving in Malta, according to Filippo Tinnirello, Lavazza’s area manager for Southern Italy (Automatic Coffee Service Business) and Country Manager Malta. “The concept that an espresso is not just coffee, is sinking in,” he observed during a visit to Malta earlier recently.

Lavazza, who is represented in Malta by P. Cutajar & Co, is currently working in three market segments. It is the market leader in the “home” market (ground coffee) and second in the “away from home” market, including the hotels, restaurants and catering (HO.RE.CA) segment (coffee beans).

Mr Tinnirello said Lavazza is the only player in the pods segment, and it wants to work to consolidate this advantage.

However, he also wants to further develop Lavazza’s automatic distribution, in collaboration with local vending companies, of both manual and automatic machines.

Following a reorganisation of Lavazza’s export division, Malta was grouped with the Southern Italy region at the beginning of this year, with Mr Tinnirello, based in Catania, also being responsible for Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia.

Lavazza is the top single product (coffee) company in the world and fifth overall. It has four production plants in Italy and one each in Brazil and India. In 1979 it launched the Centro Studi Luigi Lavazza, since renamed the Lavazza Training Centre, and now has 43 centres worldwide, including 11 in Italy.