Ernesto Illy to step down as illicafe chairman

Ernesto Illy (pictured)whose passion for coffee earned him the nicknames of Papa Bean and Espresso Missionary in the international press, is stepping down from the chairmanship of illicafe at 80. His son Dr Andrea Illy will take over.

illycaffe, based in Trieste, Italy has for three generations been serving the cause of good coffee globally and in the process done great service to the cause of Indian coffee by helping to promote it internationally.

In the present year itself the company has sourced 1,233 tonne of coffee beans till June 27. The sourced beans are used as blends to prepare various coffee flavours sold in illicafe cafes worldwide.

Both Ernesto Illy and Andrea Illy have paid many visits to India in the last three years to identify and encourage growers and thereby strengthen their sourcing from India.

Around the world, the company blends with Indian coffee to produce flavours served in over 40,000 locations and sold in over 100 countries in Europe, North and South America, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The company in the last few years has stepped up its activities in India, increased procurement (sourcing) and instituted the 'India Coffee Quality Prize for Espresso'. It has done this to promote the quality movement among growers and also encourage them to produce according to illycafe standards.

Ernesto Illy, a scientist and a researcher who started a research laboratory that soon became the source of numerous inventions and patents, established co-operation agreements with universities and research centres, promoted premium quality coffee around the world, and brought Italian-style espresso to the rest of the world.

Francesco Illy founded illycaffe in 1933 and was in fact the inventor (granted a patent in 1934) of the compressed air coffee making machine, the predecessor of the espresso machine as we now know it.

He also devised a new packaging system for preserving coffee in which cans were filled with inert gases instead of air for pressurisation.

Thanks to this new packaging system, illycafe's coffee was soon "exported" outside the immediate Trieste area, and was eventually sold all over Italy.

The company employs more than 500 people and reported consolidated revenues of Euro 190 million in 2004.