A middle-weight contender with style and glamour: roaster Caffe Vergnano is a reminder of how Italian family-owned coffee roasting business are a combination of passion and expertise.

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In the 1930s Caffe Vergnano bought its own coffee plantation in Kenya. This is indicative of a company that has stayed close to its green coffees at origin, a tradition it conscientiously pursues in the numerous lands from which its blends are derived. The base of these is in Brazil and other Milds from Central America.

Also, as is true of virtually all Italian coffee roasting firms, Caffe Vergnano is a family operation--so much so today that sometimes it seems they are to be found everywhere at headquarters outside Turin.

The Vergnano family preoccupation with coffee is also quite old by coffee industry standards. The actual name of the company is "Caffe' Vergnano 1882," or counting 117 years of buying green coffees, roasting and blending them, and successfully pleasing the demanding northern Italian palate for espresso blends.

Commitment to green coffee at origin, and to the better class of such, and the day-to-day monitoring of the company by its family owners--a family outspokenly proud of its production and tradition--are intrinsic to the Caffee Vergnano business character.

So is audacity. Caffe Vergnano is not a giant of coffee. In Italy it has grown to rank as the largest of middle-sized roasters, meaning it has quite a significant capacity and is present in all coffee market sectors. Its 'home' and 'horeca' strengths once regional, mostly in the northern half of the peninsula, are now national and the Vergnano home brand is Italy's sixth largest by distribution.

Notwithstanding relative size, the company has followed a strategy of contending head on with the giants of Italian espresso. It uses TV advertising extensively, expensively; the recent campaign features Dustin Hoffman as their Hollywood-poster man. Caffe Vergnano invests heavily to stay competitive in the array of contemporary packaging and coffee drink genres, from ground to whole bean, with traditional house blends, 100% Arabicas and organic entries. It was an early major producer of espresso pods and now caps too. The company vigorously pursues exports to more than 50 nations and has formulated a highly successful chain of Caffe' Vergnano 1882 espresso bar/cafes concepts.

This energetic, aggressive style is also an attribute of the company. "We always work to grow in any viable coffee market sector where quality in product can be a feature," explains Tomasso Lambaert, the export manager for Caffe Vergnano. "The quality image is vital to our commercial strategy. This is why we adhere to measured expansion internationally, strengthening our presence in the European markets and entering new ones (U.S., China).

"At all costs we promote and protect our coffee's image as an array of upscale espresso, even filter blends. We seek presence in fashionable outlets if at all possible, or served by discriminating bars, supplemented by our own branded Caffe Vergnano espresso-food outlets."

According to Lambaert, Vergnano while expanding market share in Italy has seen its exports not only keep pace in terms of share in production but expand. Exports account for 21% of production, and are for retail and horeca sales. Despite what judicial growth the company seeks for its sales abroad, the Korean market as one example in just two years of operations has expanded impressively to rank among Caffe Vergnano's top 10 markets worldwide

Overall, Caffe Vergnano sales are 30% in the Horeca sector, 60% in retail, the remainder in private label. It offers brick packs, single or over wrapped in multiple units, valve bags, tins, barrels of beans for feeding espresso bar machines, filter coffee packs and the above referenced pods and caps. The numerous packaging lines are entirely automated.

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Roasting, however, while controlled, is still a matter of self-esteem at Vergnano, as is the green coffee buying itself. Despite its significant production volume the roasting is still stow, from 18 to 22 minutes.

Caffe' Vergnano 1882 franchising concepts range from store-in-a-store, to espresso corners, to self standing espresso bars, to Italian espresso and food outlets. This was the first fully formatted and branded chain of Italian espresso bars. Now there are 45 of the outlets, 10 in Italy, the others in France, Germany, UK and other European nations.

Outside of Europe the Vergnano concept stores are found in China and most recently in Canada. The coffee and its stores enjoy particular favor in Arabia, with stores in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

While a movie star has helped give glamour to this renowned old and classically Italian coffee label, its elegance remains a matter of a carefully styled package imagery running to black and gold, with purposeful notes of a serious sobriety. For Vergnano coffee is a most serious business indeed, it as a fight for the championship in its market sector.