Segafredo
Segafredo Zanetti Espresso is the "Ambassador of the Italian Coffee Culture". The essence of Segafredo Zanetti is the lifestyle reflected in Italy's cafés. Segafredo prides itself on providing top level products, service, and hospitality.
The Segafredo Zanetti brand was born thanks to the great and passionate work of an Italian coffee merchant, Mr. Massimo Zanetti. Descendant from a family with more than two generations in the coffee trade business, Mr. Zanetti launched the first Segafredo Café back in 1988 in Paris. With headquarters in Portsmouth, Virginia, roasting facilities in Suffolk, Virginia and Moonachie, New Jersey, four distribution hubs across the country, a national delivery network, and a coffee plantation in Hawaii, Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA’s tradition of excellence extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. But our story begins in Treviso, Italy, just off the Adriatic Sea.
It was there, over 35 years ago, that Massimo Zanetti decided to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as a purveyor of green coffee. But Mr. Zanetti soon took that tradition beyond its roots, building on his family’s legacy to include the roasting, production, and global distribution of coffee. Today, Segafredo represents four generations of global coffee influence and tradition.
In its early days, the company roasted and sold just one ton of coffee annually. Since then, Segafredo has expanded operations to include strategic alliances with coffee farms located in Costa Rica, Brazil and Kauai, Hawaii. Their coffees are processed in partnerships with mills in Brazil, Costa Rica and Honduras, as well as a green-coffee trading company in Switzerland. They operate roasting plants throughout the world with a distribution network of subsidiaries and authorized dealers in over 100 countries, manufacture professional bar equipment and espresso machines under the La San Marco name, and own more than 300 Segafredo Zanetti Espresso Cafés across the globe. This guarantees a continuous flow of quality coffee from the plant to the cup.
Today, Massimo Zanetti Beverage sells 120,000 tons of coffee each year through 20 international consumer brands, making it one of the world’s largest coffee groups. The Massimo Zanetti Beverage Commitment: It’s all about the coffee. How do you become a world leader? With a single-minded focus. Massimo Zanetti Beverage is a fully vertically integrated company, dedicated solely to delivering the very best cup of coffee on earth. The only thing they do is coffee – from planting and harvesting the coffee cherries on our farms to roasting, manufacturing, and distributing it to coffee lovers around the world. In fact, you’ll find their brands in coffee cups on every continent.
Segafredo also prides itself on having direct control on all steps of the production cycle. Segafredo Zanetti is in fact the only company in the coffee industry that directly controls the entire coffee production process. From the cultivation and selection of the coffee beans on Segafredo plantations in Brazil, Hawaii and Costa Rica, to the art of the blending and roasting in modern facilities. With the ability to monitor the entire production process, Segafredo is able to create blends of the most famous and appreciated Italian coffee all over the world.
For Segafredo Zanetti coffee roasting is the result of constant research and technological innovation. For the coffee roasting procedure, or toasting, the raw beans are first selected and then put in roasting machines. Here they are heated up and constantly stirred until the temperature reaches 200-230°C. During the roasting the beans lose weight (-20%), increase their volume (+60%) and are chemically modified; this way the coffee’s aromatic components develop. The coffee loses acidity and assumes the bitter taste. The more the coffee is roasted, the more its taste is striking. At the same time, the coffee acquires a dark brown color called “monk’s robe”.
For every Segafredo Zanetti coffee, there is a blending reference named TASTE STANDARD, which is set by a group of experts. Since the coffee qualities vary from one harvest to another, the roasting art consists in dosing the different components of the blending for every new harvest, in order to ensure that the blend meets the “taste standard”. Segafredo Zanetti products are appreciated all over the world for all these reasons, owing to their great quality and our ability to understand and develop the taste.