From humble beginnings, to global coffee brand, Lavazza's immersive museum tells a story of initiative, inventiveness, and passion.
Italians love their coffee. It’s part of their culture and might as well be part of their DNA. The Lavazza brand started with a small grocery store in 1895, and has gone on to become a global emblem of not just coffee, but of Italy itself.
La Luigi Lavazza, S.p.A. claims to be the choice of 16 out of 20 million families in Italy and is branded as 'Italy's favourite coffee'. Lavazza sells instant, ground, pod and bean coffee plus coffee machines, with 8 manufacturing plants worldwide to facilitate their vast product line. In 2022 the brand reported revenues of € 2.7 billion, an increase of +17.6% compared to 2021. Lavazza has built a strong presence in both the retail and professional sectors, supplying coffee to households, offices, hotels, restaurants, and cafes.
Based in Turin, Italy’s most industrial city, Lavazza's home is based in a location not often on the tourist radar, with most preferring to head to the big hitters like Venice, Rome, Florence and Milan. But, those travellers are missing a trick. Turin has many cultural treasures. It is the home of not just coffee, but motoring behemoth Fiat, global drinks firm Martini and sporting giant Juventus. The Piedmont region has its own set of customs and delicacies, alpine scenery, vineyards, rice fields, Roman ruins and scenic drives. It is a massively underrated destination that is begging to be explored.
We knew very little about the brand's history before our visit. What we did not expect was such an immersive and educational experience, in an architectural gem of a building, that would capture our imagination, and make us appreciate our daily espresso even more.
The brand history
Luigi Lavazza was born on April 24, 1859, in the small town of Murisengo, 30 miles from Turin, and grew up as a peasant farmer. He respected the mountainous countryside, but times were hard and after a couple of poor harvests, he left the farm. Aged 26, he headed for the big city, moving to Turin to seek his fortune.
Turin at the time, along with Milan, was leading the Italian industrial revolution. Luigi worked in various jobs during the day and attended trade school at night, where he earned a diploma in chemistry.
In 1895, he made an investment that changed his life and the Italian coffee industry forever. Using his savings and a loan from a former employer, Luigi opened a small grocery store, Drogheria Lavazza, in Via San Tommaso, in the historic district of Turin.
At the time, coffee blends for domestic consumption did not exist and the coffee you could buy was inconstant in quality and flavour. To serve his wealthy and travelled clientele, Luigi opened a workshop in the rear of his store, where he put his studies in chemistry to the test. He experimented with roasting and grinding different varieties of coffee beans from his supplier in Genoa. He became a coffee scholar, studying coffee plant botany and its unique characteristics, even travelling to Brazil to learn from the experts.
Coffee culture had witnessed a seismic change in a few short years. In 1884 Italian inventor, Angelo Moriondo, presented his Espresso Machine at the Italian Great Exhibition in Turin, the first patented in the world. Now coffee could be brewed in bulk. However, he never took this into full production.
Fast forward to 1901, and Milanese engineer Luigi Bezzera patented his single-serving espresso machine, designed for increased throughput and cost-effectiveness. This was exhibited under the name Bezzera L. Caffè Espresso at the World's Fair in Milan in 1906.
Suddenly the Italians and the world had a new way of drinking coffee, the espresso.
To meet increased demand, Luigi installed new automatic roasting machines and his store became a manufacturing site. Business flourished, and Luigi founded Luigi Lavazza SpA in 1927. It was a true family concern and included his wife Emilia and their children Maria, Mario, Pericle, and Giuseppe.
During the 1930s, the consumption of coffee in the home grew in popularity and Lavazza introduced vacuum packaging, which helped preserve the aroma and flavour of the beans. This meant that their coffee could be transported further afield and stored for longer and new markets emerged.
In 1935, the Brazilian government invited Luigi to visit the country. His two month, fact-finding trip was the last he made before handing the company over to his children the following year. Luigi was a farmer at heart and was shocked at the living and environmental conditions in and around the coffee plantations he visited. He returned to Italy, vowing to protect the natural environment, a mission that has been at the forefront of the company ever since.
The Second World War years saw Mussolini ban all coffee imports and the Lavazza factory bombed. To stay afloat, the brand reverted to its grocery heritage, selling staples such as oil, soap, and candles. It was not until after the war that coffee production resumed.
Packaging increasingly became a promotional tool. In 1946 the first logo was created for Lavazza and in 1957 the brand started advertising on television.
In the following decades, Lavazza continued to expand its presence, both domestically and internationally. It opened subsidiaries and established partnerships in different countries, gradually becoming a global brand, operating in more than 140 countries.
Lavazza's commitment to innovation led to advancements in coffee technology, such as the development of their own coffee machines and coffee capsules in the 1980s and beyond.
In 1979 they established the Lavazza Training Center, teaching all aspects of coffee from its origins to processing, distribution, and consumption. Today it is the largest coffee training network in the world, with eight centers in Italy and 47 throughout the world.
In 2004, The Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation, an NPO, was founded, to improve living conditions in coffee-producing countries, sustainability, and ethical sourcing. It has implemented various initiatives to promote responsible coffee production and support coffee-growing communities. In their ‘Roadmap to Zero’ plan, Lavazza pledged to attain carbon neutrality by 2030 by offsetting indirect emissions from all aspects of its supply chains.
The brand has expanded its product range to include single-origin coffees, organic blends, and specialty coffees to cater to the evolving preferences of consumers.
Lavazza remains a family-owned business, with the fourth generation of the Lavazza family actively involved in its management. The company's commitment to quality, innovation, and sustainability, has allowed it to maintain its position as a prominent player in the global coffee market.
The Visitor Centre design
Lavazza has its beating heart in Turin, with a €120 million headquarters development in the city's Aurora district, a few hundred metres away from the company's old headquarters.
The building is part of a regeneration project of the former Enel power station. The headquarters buildings were designed by Cino Zucchi Architects, and inspired by a cloud. The buildings were created with sustainability as the main goal, and are one of the top three most sustainable buildings in Italy and one of the most sustainable in the world.
The design process began in 2010 for a building to accommodate a workforce of 600, including the brand's Research and Development team, plus a brand museum and cultural hub. The building isn’t just an office complex and a visitor attraction, it also encompasses a surprise. An archaeological site was discovered during the build, an early Christian basilica, that is open to the public, surrounded by a piazza and garden.
The multimedia for the visitor centre was by Ralph Applebaum Associates, who have worked on award-winning projects across the world, such as The Imperial War Museum, London, the Ikea Museum, Culloden Battlefield Museum, and the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum in Liverpool’s Albert Dock, only a few miles from my childhood home and a place we regularly visited on school trips. They were also responsible for the revamp of Edinburgh’s excellent National Museum of Scotland, just 40 minutes from my front door.
The whole design was a truly collaborative, artistic affair, with input from chefs, film set designers and museum designers. Even details such as the text accompanying the installations, were created by students of a creative writing school, under the watchful eye of the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco.
The museum opened on 8th June 2018.
Entrance
We booked online and arrived at the museum on a quiet October afternoon. The building is an architectural treat. The staircase alone deserves a photograph or two.
We were handed a lanyard with a ceramic espresso cup attached, a device that is designed to connect seamlessly with the exhibits throughout the museum, via an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip. We were interested to see just how well it worked, as technology has a habit of letting you down.
The only other exhibits in the entrance space are two historic Lavazza delivery vans. I have a passion for an old van with a logo, so I was happy.
A set of double doors opens, and you're free to explore the five galleries within the museum. The museum is designed to impart the brand's ethos and to inspire the visitor. Novelist, playwright, and journalist Alessandro Baricco sums it up in a quote on the wall as you enter;
"Museums are maps: the only ones which we have to retrace steps through the maze of our memory." (Alessandro Baricco)
Casa Lavazza
The first gallery is dedicated to the origins of the brand, a story told through a series of audio/visual displays, artefacts, and interactive elements.
We start with Luigi's dream of a family-run company. There is a lot of emphasis on this being a multi-generational business.
The Lavazza Milestones Wall explains the company timeline and is simple, yet effective, with a mix of old photographs and items from the archive.
Next, we arrive at the first cup interactive point, so we take a seat (though we wished there were two of them), and see what this cup gives us access to.
A light appears and each of the cup points launches an experience. This could be a sound recording, a video, a projection, a picture, or the chance to download content as you go. It became a bit like a treasure hunt, and a fun way of interacting with the brand story. Each place we placed our cup worked seamlessly. Now that's impressive.
The bonus of the cup device is that you are free to wander around and access the brand story and all the interactive elements in any way you see fit. There are no set guidelines or time limits. You might, like me, be drawn to the artwork in the display on Lavazza Stickers, used in marketing initiatives.
Or you could check out the desk, a nod to Luigi's desk in his office.
Or you could access another interactive table, which contains extensive information on the family history. There's so much in fact, that you could be there for ages and still not get to see all of the information. This was one area where there was a hold-up. There were too many people wanting to access the content and too much information to discover. Like many, we had to look at snippets and then move on, to let other guests have their turn. It was a shame, as the archive material was beautifully presented.
Turn another corner and you enter a recreation of the original grocery store, surrounded by coffee paraphernalia.
A stunning example of an early espresso machine sits on the counter. Anyone who enjoys old fonts and bits of machinery, like me, will enjoy the artefacts on show.
There are plenty of drawers to pull out and find more information on the brand.
Turn another corner and you are in a small gallery focussing on Lavazza's links to sport.
The company has been active in the world of tennis for many years, and in 2015 became the only food and beverage brand to partner with all four Grand Slams around the world. In 2016 the brand announced a new global collaboration featuring tennis legend, Andre Agassi.
Lavazza sponsors and partners with major football teams such as English premiership team Arsenal, Juventus, Liverpool FC. and Dutch football club Ajax.
La Fabbrica
La Fabbrica is the second immersive gallery visitors encounter, focusing on the sensory attributes of coffee, tracing the production processes from growing, and harvesting, through to distribution and information on the growers themselves.
The long gallery corridor has different content on both walls, which flank a central exhibit table. One side of the table has content in English, and the opposite side has content in Italian and there are interactive elements all along the displays.
You can smell the aroma of the coffee plants and forest.
You can smell and touch the beans and coffee cherries used in the different production methods, though they smelt of very little and could do with refreshing.
Visitors can play with a model to learn about the different parts of the coffee cherry. It reminded me of one of those 1960s egg chairs.
There were a few times when we played content on one screen in English and guests opposite wanted to access the same content in Italian, which meant one of us got content and the other had to wait. We were patient, but a few guests moved away, thinking the screen was faulty. Perhaps two smaller screens, each playing content simultaneously, would have made it simpler. We got to virtually grow some coffee and face the challenges of bugs, watering, pruning, and harvesting.
We especially appreciated seeing photos of the actual coffee farmers, as it makes it less of a faceless business. They are a vital component of the coffee industry after all. Lavazza source their coffee from Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Indonesia, Uganda, Mexico, and the United States. The majority of Lavazza coffee is a blend of Arabica and Robusta beans. Some Lavazza coffee, on the other hand, is made entirely of Arabica beans.
The next display explains the classification of coffee, the art of blending, and how decaffeinated is made.
And the final section is all about coffee packaging and distribution. Guests can learn about how packaging is made and see images and videos on the production facilities. The company has a program in place to recycle used coffee grounds, and it also uses recycled materials in its packaging.
I especially enjoyed interacting with the sliding interactive displays here. There's a video online from IntoTheMInds on how effective they were.
La Piazza
The next gallery is dedicated to the historic coffee machines. The engineering on show ranges from a prototype of a capsule machine from the 1980s to stunning machines from a bygone era to a coffee machine that went into space. There's a reproduction of Moriondo's coffee machine from 1884.
Not all of them had to be beautiful, some are purely functional.
There's a smart Faema E-61 machine from 1961.
But some are truly stunning, like the La Pavoni Model Ideale 2 cups from 1910.
The first espresso coffee capsule machine in space, the ISPRESSO, was made by Argotec for Lavazza and ended up aboard the International Space Station in 2015. Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti made the first espresso coffee in history in a state of microgravity.
L’Atelier
The next gallery showcases the most popular Lavazza advertising campaigns throughout the company’s history. First, you have to check out their fabulous orange Lavazza van. In 1959, during the design show Turin Salone del Mobile, Lavazza unveiled its first 'Autobar', designed by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Boneschi.
This gave the brand a new way to connect with its customers. This was in a time before coffee vans were as prevalent as they are today, so they would have created quite the talking point. The brand was certainly ahead of its time. The example in the museum is a Fiat 241 Autobar and I have found some images of the original Autobar in action.
Large and proud are the brand's characters Cabellero and Carmecita, that featured in advertising from the 1960s.
And then you enter a gallery where you can pretend to be in the iconic TV advertisements, not that we know any of them, being from the UK.
The advertising images were interesting to look at though. I am sure the whole area would make more sense to the Italian visitors and they could wallow in nostalgia for a while.
L’Universo
You're nearly at the coffee tasting, and by now you'll be needing one. You walk through an immersive 360-degree multimedia gallery, where you pass through the permeable curtain walls, interact with the touch table, and collect and share personalised digital information and memories of your experience. You are surrounded by projections accompanied by mood-enhancing music and natural sounds. It's very ethereal.
Excitement builds, as you're heading to the last stop on your visit and to the tasting bar.
The bar is in a sleek and stark contrast to the installations that proceeded it. We are offered a cherry lemonade/coffee concoction, 3/4 cherry (cordial or lemonade, we weren't told which), ice, and then a shot of espresso or cold brew. The guests next to us got way more coffee in theirs and ours tasted just of cherry. It was delicious, however. We also get an espresso, which perked us up.
This is the final interactive stop for our trusty coffee cup. We enter our contact details and expect little apart from being bombarded with marketing.
There is no seating. Okay, so most people would down their espresso in one. But a little bit of theatre and a seat for some dwell time would have been advantageous if only to give us time to find out which coffee we'd just been served, so we could buy it in the shop.
The store
The store is bright and well laid out and filled with not just coffee but some design-led souvenirs.
There was some coffee, but not too much and most of it looked like it was special editions just for the museum. We bought a packet anyway and a stovetop coffee pot, which we hoped we couldn't buy at home.
And out we headed into the piazza.
The gardens and surrounding area have been redeveloped and offered a welcome rest before we headed back on the bus.
That red coffee pot is what we had just purchased. Luckily ours would fit into hand luggage!
Archivio Storico Lavazza
Next to the museum is the Archivio Storico Lavazza, home to the brand archive, containing 8,500 documents, stories, and images recounting 120 years of the company's history.
La Centrale at Nuvola Lavazza
Next to the museum is La Centrale, a multi-use venue spanning 4,500 square metres, set in the Aurora district’s former power plant. La Centrale is home to a Convention Centre, an event space, a Michelin-starred restaurant called Condividere, and a Bistrot. The restoration project preserved the original 1897 structure, mixing its glorious industrial charm with modern facilities and function.
Dante Ferretti, the Italian Academy Award-winning artistic director of movies The Aviator and Sweeney Todd, consulted on the design of the spaces, with the menu created by the award-winning Spanish chef Ferran Adrià , pioneer of molecular gastronomy and considered to be a culinary superstar.
After the visit
So, what else did those coffee cups give us? Well, what we got a few minutes after our visit, was an email. In it was all the content we had saved when going around the museum using our interactive cups. This included any pictures we saved, all the added content we asked for, information about each section of the museum, pictures of all the coffee farmers, and more. The only thing that wasn't included is a link to the coffee we were served in the bar, or recipes to make the cocktail-style drink served alongside it. This would have allowed us to purchase the ingredients back home. However, as far as brand advocacy goes, the speed of their contact and the contents are to be commended.
In conclusion
The whole visit was an unexpected treat. For a brand we have seen everywhere, we learned a lot and the museum design and content left a lasting impression and certainly changed a few preconceptions. They might be a behemoth of a brand, but they have family at their core and sustainability in their hearts.
The interactive elements with the cup worked well and the content was impressive, which makes a change from many museums. You have to give the cup back, which we understood, as it held our information. However, getting a real, branded espresso cup as a memento would have been a welcome additional layer of advocacy. We agreed that we would have paid an extra €5 for a commemorative cup as part of the ticket price too. It's small enough for most visitors to pop into airline hand luggage too.
When it gets busy it can be tricky to access all the museum content, due to the sheer volume of information. Some of the content activated by the cups was too long, so some guests inadvertently monopolised the cup interactive areas. More interactive hotspots and shorter content would have made for a better experience in some parts. Having the cup between the pair of us was fine, but there were a few times we could have done with one each.
Having all the museum content in English and Italian was great for us, but maybe not so great for those visitors that don't speak or read either.
The space never felt overly busy, but we were still visiting when there were timed slots.
I would have preferred more seating around the galleries. There's a lot to take in and I could have done with a quick rest.
Brands, please refresh the contents of your sensory experiences regularly. It's always disappointing to come across an olfactory exhibit that smells of nothing at all, just because the contents haven't been updated. Lavazza, you're not the first or last that we've come across.
The second-floor advertising interactives would be nostalgic for anyone Italian, but for us, who had never seen the content in the UK, it meant nothing. The Instagram opportunities up there were fun but not many people reacted with them. This could be because those that remember the historic adverts are not exactly fans of the selfie.
All in all, the museum is well worth a visit for those that enjoy coffee or want to know more. Don't be a coffee snob. Lavazza products might be everywhere, but they have worked hard to get that global reach, and their brand story, and their museum, showcase ingenuity and imagination. Don't miss it.
How long was the visit?
We had a 3 pm ticket and left at 5.45 pm. We didn't read everything so you could be there a while longer.
How much are tickets?
We paid for our own tickets and this was not part of any advertising.
Adults: 10 €
Over 65, under 26, concessions: 8 €
Opening times
It's always worth checking with the venue for their current opening times, as they can vary.
When we visited the museum was open on the museum was open from Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (last admission at 5:30 p.m.)
Website: Museo Lavazza
Where we stayed:
We were based in Turin for 5 nights at a fabulous hotel found through Booking.com called the Opera 35 Suite & Studio, in a standard room. It beat the 5-star hotel we stayed at in Milan.
The staff were friendly and gave us some great recommendations for dinner and for things to see. The hotel is in a restored neoclassical, Belle Epoque mansion. It is near the river, which made it much quieter than staying in the main tourist area, yet it was only a 15 minute walk to the main tourist piazzas.
I booked the hotel as it had some outdoor space, a large courtyard which has some seating in it, and a respite from the heat. It was October but still mid twenties and T-shirt weather.
The room was simply furnished, with a frescoed ceiling, but it was all we needed. An added bonus was that when we booked we got a free car pickup from the airport to the hotel, in a very nice Mercedes with a fabulous driver called Walter, who sped through the city streets and deposited us and our luggage at the door. No need for a hire car this time. We didn't have breakfast included, so grabbed this when out and about in the city.
Top Tip - Not many places are open for dinner on a Sunday, or even a Monday for that matter. It's a post-pandemic issue in many places we travel to now.
For dinner on two nights we were recommended the excellent Pastificio Defilippis, which has been family run since 1872. It makes pasta, which you can buy in their beautiful store. We sat outside and had two amazing meals, that were authentic and just like Mamma used to make! Pasta never tasted so good and the wine was pretty darned good too. Save room for the enormous Tiramisu. It's to die for.
Getting here:
The airport (Aeroporto di Torino) is 14km from the Lavazza Museum. A Taxi from the airport to the city centre costs about €30 and takes about 30 minutes. There is an official taxi rank outside the Arrival Hall. We struck lucky and got a private taxi included in our hotel booking.
For travellers on a budget, a great alternative is to take the Arriva bus No. 268. The bus is direct from Turin airport, taking 40 minutes to reach the city centre and costs €4. You can purchase your tickets at the airport vending machines or directly from the bus driver with a €1 supplement. However, you will have to find your way to your Turin hotel, which can be difficult when travelling with heavy luggage.
Turin Airport Train Station can be found a few metres away facing the main terminal. sfMA railway links the airport to Turin's Stazione Dora Railway Station in just over 20 minutes, every working day from 5:04 am to 9:03 pm.
The city is served by 2 main train stations, one of which we used to travel to Milan from, on a high-speed bullet train, a journey that lasted less than an hour. The trains we found to be very good indeed, so consider using them to venture further afield.
Once in the city, we bought a 5-day travel pass, which you need to pick up at a local tobacconist shop. The bus and tram network is great around town and we used it to get to the furthest reaches of their network without any bother, though it can take a little while to get there. Google Maps helped enormously with planning our routes.
But the joy for us was the trams. There are modern trams in the city, but if you're in town on a weekend, try to ride the free historic tram Route 7, which departs every 30 min from Piazza Castello. On the day we travelled, we got a free tour guide on board (all in Italian) who handed out a book on the tram's restoration.
What else is there to see close by:
Turin is Italy’s fourth largest city and one of the most underrated holiday destinations in the country. We loved our 5 day visit.
Palazzo Reale is a real gem and your jaw will drop in every room. Built in 1646, it served as a royal residence until 1865. Today, you can visit various sections of the palace in all its gilded wonder. The Royal Armory and its impressive collection of stuffed horses with their armored riders is a must-see, as are the impressive chandeliers in nearly every room. It's a mere 20 minute stroll from the Lavazza Museum.
Parco del Valentino, is a lovely riverside park, home to some pretty gardens and rowing clubs and the local police horse stable.
Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile will soon feature in a report from us, as it is a fabulous car museum and should not be missed when in the city. It's about 40 minutes on public transport from Lavazza Museum and well worth a trip.
Italian Job film fans can also walk around the iconic rooftop circuit of Fiat's Lingotto factory, which is now a hospital and shopping mall. The rooftop has been converted into a garden. Film and car fans can still see the famous spiral rampways and get great views across the city. It is right next to the Lingotto metro station.
Turin’s Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) is revered globally for its vast collection of Egyptian antiquities and academic research credentials, rivalling the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. It's 30 minutes walk from Lavazza and easily accessible by bus.
Located in the Mole Antonelliana, the National Museum of Cinema has visitors flocking to it, not just for the museum, but to ride in its elevator. It's a unique mode of transport and you can access the viewing platform at the top of the building, which offers amazing views of the city and mountains beyond. We tried to get there, but it had closed unexpectedly for maintenance, so we'll have to try again next time we visit. It's not for those scared of lifts!
There's much more, so it is worth making at least a long weekend trip if you can.
Visited: October 2022
Photographs: ©Julie White unless noted otherwise
Disclaimer - The views and opinions expressed are solely my own. I paid for the tours in full and any comments reflect my personal experiences on that day. Please drink responsibly. Please visit and garner your own thoughts and feel free to research the brand and the visitor centre in question.