Yep, happens twice a year when they fly out here for the tennis and the horse racing carnival. It's really a nothing PR story trumped up as news because quite frankly they don't have anything in terms of market success here in Australia to crow about and energy savings are something that any company can achieve with some simple changes to their infrastructure. Even a heat recycling system used for part of the roast cycle will generate huge savings. Maybe they installed some solar panels ? It's well know that Lavazza have been experiencing declining sales year on year for the last decade and this is now the 2nd year they keep talking about introducing an instant product. They are shrinking from natural forces of increased competition across their primary segments of supermarket and cafes and a reason they took back the local distribution rights. Well all know the current strategy in Supermarkets is to push high volumes of their own home branded products to the detriment of branded products. In cafes, well, that's not a good story and even a locally contracted roasted product may not save them in that ultra tough market. If I'm not mistaken, they may have also blatantly lied about their #2 position in Australia - or perhaps they have quite conveniently not read their sales reports for 5 years. RFG (Di Bella, Gloria Jeans, Michel's, Cafe2U plus a number of other large private labels clients)...........are significantly larger than Lavazza in terms of Australian kilos of coffee consumption and I would not be surprised if they are currently pumping out more than Cantarella Bros.......but who knows as these numbers are private and confidential. Even Veneziano and the combined entities they roast for private label/contract (Coffee Club and a large discount supermarket chain) could even be doing more kilos per week than Lavazza. But again, who knows and anyone can make grand statements because there is no central record for the flow of goods.
