Coffee company grinds it out in pandemic

Return of café culture is key for Lavazza, despite it enjoying sales rise in supermarkets. Usually, the Italian coffee company is a big supplier to cafés and their army of baristas, but amid Covid waves and local and national lockdowns, that business has drained away. It has been replenished, at least in part, by a surge in sales of its ground coffee and beans at supermarkets. In its home market of Italy, coffee sales shot up by almost a quarter in the first week of lockdown, while Britons spent £24million more than usual on tea and coffee in the first three months of pandemic restrictions. In the UK, where Lavazza has a 4.9% share of the market, its sales were up 15% last year.