Lavazza India to open more training centres

After the launch of first training centre in Chennai, Lavazza India will open its second training centre in Mumbai by January 2017.

While Chennai will be the flagship training centre, the company plans to open more in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The centres will educate coffee makers in hotels that use Lavazza India’s products, on Italian coffee culture, origins, coffee brewing and coffee roasting. It will also train them on developing new coffee design and recipe.

Speaking to BusinessLine , Silvio Zaccareo, Managing Director, Lavazza India, said the company keeps innovating its product portfolio and the partners need to know how to use them the right way.

“Also in a hotel, staff keep changing. So, there is a need to train these professionals regularly,” he added.

Workshops on coffee tasting will be organised for coffee lovers and interested clients.

“The training centre will impart the knowledge on coffee and its origins to customers, journalists, bloggers and professionals free of cost,” he said. Italian coffee roaster major Lavazza has 56 training centres across the world.

Over 90 per cent of Lavazza India’s revenue comes from hotels and the corporate sector.

The company has three verticals – away from home, home and office segment. “We have limited presence in the home space. This is another area we want to improve,” Zaccareo said. One of the reasons for low traction in this segment is the lack of product relevance, as consumers do not usually associate Lavazza as a product for making coffee at home.

Hike in coffee prices is a major challenge for the company. Coffee producing states like Karnataka witnessed low rainfall this year, resulting in low yield and increased prices.

The company is focussing on improving its process efficiency and productivity to reduce cost and maintain profitability. “Despite that, we might still have to pass on few per cent of the hike to our customer,” Zaccareo said.

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