Destination 'Rivarolo.' (Genoa, Italy)

The decade at hand has already witnessed the emergence of a revival in Genoa-- made visible in the numerous building projects and renovations that have put a shine to one of Italy's most fabled trading cities. This Genoese renaissance, paced by the ongoing Columbus celebrations, seems to have touched almost every aspect of trade, including coffee.

Long one of the great coffee ports of the Mediterranean, Genoa is known far and wide by the reputations of its large family of roasters, coffee traders and agents, coffee shippers, forwarders, and warehousers. These many companies have combined their efforts to make Genoa one of Italy's leading coffee centers. Among these companies, CICE stands out not only because of the extent and range of its coffee business services but also because these services increasingly are employed worldwide.

The rekindled confidence and enthusiasm of the Genoese coffee community is also the dominant spirit these days at CICE. In fact, the company is outspoken in its goal of returning Genoa to a position as the leading coffee center of southern Europe. The company is basing its efforts for this on combining long expertise. The firm has been active for more than 60 years, holding a worldwide position in coffee as agents and importers--with the field of services offered by its vast Rivarolo coffee warehousing and handling center. Emblematic of this, the company has recently relocated its headquarters from the city itself directly to the warehousing complex, thereby reaffirming the marriage of CICE and Rivarolo in a centralized operation.

Active in both coffee and cocoa, CICE holds first place as a coffee agent in Italy, with some 850,000 bags last year. The company also ranks among the leading Italian importers. As agent, importer, and warehouser, CICE is actually absorbing 20% of Italy's total tonnage in annual green coffee imports. In combination with the other goods it specializes in, most notably metals, CICE traded 90,000 tons of merchandise last year. CICE is a member of the SAFFA Group, which had a turnover in 1993 of more than US$ 400 million. Although fully maintaining its place as a market leader in Italy, CICE's business is currently expanding abroad and this already represents 15% of its trading activities. Being committed to growth on a pan-European and global basis, while keeping all services carefully centered, means marketing the name Rivarolo. Coffee warehousing and handling services are particularly prized by CICE because they represent about 80% of the company's commercial activities.

Now with a more integrated trading, warehousing, and service program on line, CICE is promoting the full coffee potential of Rivarolo's strategic location, logistical strengths, specialized handling, processing, and distributional services. The 30,000 sq. meters of bonded warehousing space is now completely computer managed with new, linked terminal stations in each warehouse zone.

In recent years, Rivarolo might typically have about 250,000 bags of green coffee on hand at any given time, but this is increasing and will be further increased in the near future. Yet only part of the emphasis at CICE is now on increasing tonnage volumes, even more importantly the focus today is on selling services and a more price/time competitive approach to coffee transport, handling, manipulation, storage, and distribution that aspires to cover all the phases, processes, and hands that touch the green beans as they move from producer to roaster.

To achieve this, the CICE program at Rivarolo is both flexible and specialized. This means for example that there are coffee warehousing spaces dedicated to small roasters--where hundreds of different clients can store perhaps a small quantity of bags for an indefinite period--and separate spaces for Europe's larger roasters where many tons of coffee move in and out on a weekly basis. Rivarolo is also offering bulk handling and processing (cleaning) services, and can receive, transform, deliver as ordered--that is as bulk form or into containers and trucks or into big bags.

Given the range and sophistication of these services, it is hardly surprising

that Rivarolo wants more visibility on the world coffee map. In the most simple terms, the complex is sited a few kilometers inland from one of the Mediterranean's largest ports, and is accessed by its own rail terminal and by the immediate proximity of the Genoa-Milan expressway that in turn gives direct passage to the truck routes to France and Switzerland. The management at CICE in fact views Rivarolo as something more than just a warehousing complex in northern Italy--they see it as a hub and service station connecting many different global coffee highways, some served by ship, some by train and truck, and with a potential, strategic relationship to northern Europe as well as to the Mediterranean basin.

Indicative of this new competitive mentality, CICE is now actively promoting Rivarola as a coffee destination unto itself. The company has recently forged agreements with coffee shippers from India, Vietnam, Colombia, Brazil, and Costa Rica whereby the bill of lading is destined Rivarolo rather than Genoa. As examples of this, all coffees shipped on CGM to Genoa are in fact now designated Rivarolo; Mitsui OSK Lines is also shipping Vietnamese coffee to Rivarolo; Costa Container Lines has begun offering four sailings per month for coffee from Costa Rica to Rivarolo--the coffee arrives via port of Savona, north of Genova, and transit time from Costa Rica to Rivarola is a very fast 16 to 17 days.