Jamie’s Italian restaurants announced a new partnership with Kimbo, one of the historical brand embodied the Neapolitan espresso. Having spent six months to look for Neapolitan style espresso, Jamie Oliver eventually chose Kimbo, “a company”– he declared – “whose mission has always been to offer quality coffee, authentically made in Italy, and produced with respect for people and environment”. Jamie’s Italian is part of Jamie Oliver Group, the holding company of the celebrity chef. Jamie’s Italian latest accounts show sales increased by 10% in 2014 compared to the previous year. Paola Rubino, chairman of Kimbo, added: “We are absolutely delighted to work with Jamie Oliver and his team. We share the same passion for authentically and tradition and this is reflected in the new coffee range of products and menu we created together. This is an exciting opportunity to promote the culture of espresso in UK and we look forward with a successfully and long collaboration”. Particularly in this recent years, Kimbo has focused in a major way on partnership: with Unilever has created an Ice cream, with Illy has created Uno Capsule System, then with Autogrill and this time with Jamie’s Italian.
In 2014 the Italian coffee company – owned by Rubino family – reached a turnover of 170 million euros and a share of exports of 10%. “The last 4-5 years have been a positive period” explains Simone Cavallo, the general manager: “This is the result of a number of choice the company has made, first that of enhancing its base of professional skills to into the company the expertise needed to open new markets”.
The result is a brand that in Italy represents 12% of the Italian retail market and abroad has pumped into expansion thanks to the subrand ‘Kimbo espresso Italiano’. The most important countries for the company are France, Germany and the Uk. If we take into consideration the global coffee market, espresso represents only a tiny 2 per cent. But it’s a 2 per cent that is exclusively Italian and increases with the growing interest in everything is the so called ‘made in Italy’.