We're going to talk with the president of illy, Andrea Illy, who is here in Brazil for a very special mission — the Ernesto Illy Award for Espresso Coffee Quality. An award that has been around for more than 30 years, has a lot of history, and Andrea is going to tell us a little about how the coffee market is today and how he sees the future of coffee farming in the world. Let's start another edition of Café Logo Existo today with Andrea Illy, president of illy. Andrea, thank you so much for being here with us in Brazil. Once again, I'd like you to talk a little about the Brazilian producer. In your travels and journeys, have you found that the Brazilian producer has become more professionalized? Are they more entrepreneurial? Are they investing more in coffee?
Yes. Over more than 30 years of illy in Brazil, we have exchanged a lot of knowledge with coffee producers. The first objective was in the 90s to increase quality — there was a greater focus from Dr. Techeira, my father, and the entire team to transfer practices to improve the quality of the harvest. The second phase was in recent decades to improve agronomic practices in a way that creates agriculture that is more climate-resilient, able to absorb temperature shocks, droughts, etc., and at the same time have agriculture with less environmental impact. And this practice is called regenerative agriculture, which was pioneered.
What is very, very interesting is that the direct purchasing chain and working hand in hand with the coffee producer allows for a continuous exchange of knowledge and the ability to quickly align corrective actions to improve quality, productivity, and everything else. And the result was striking, because Brazil went from being strictly a quantity leader, a commodity coffee producer, to also being a quality leader, an experience coffee producer, to a world champion in quality. And I think this is a path that will continue in the future and will probably be reinforced more and more in Brazil.
Yes. Very, very positive too, because one must consider that illy's initiative is the tip of the diamond, but it also inspires other initiatives in the rest of the market, like a percolation effect. Beautiful. Coffee consumption, the consumer is growing more and more. Do you notice that? Do you notice this issue of the need for sustainability?
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. The consumer has evolved a lot. All the international trends that started in the 90s of gourmet coffee, high quality, 100% arabica, espresso, single origin, microlots, etc. — this creates much greater involvement from the consumer, who seeks not the energy or the caffeine in coffee, but the taste, the pleasure, the discovery of different flavor characteristics and aromas, etc. So the consumer has become much more demanding not only from the point of view of the cup's quality, but also of the sustainability of practices — not only environmental but also social — and consequently traceability: wanting to know the origin, the story. Yes, this is a significant change that started and must continue in a way that totally decommodifies coffee. By becoming an experience product, it can increase consumption, increase the value of coffee, and pay more remunerative prices throughout the chain.
Yes. And also increase loyalty, right? A consumption that isn't occasional but becomes a lifestyle. Yes. And speaking of price, which is the question everyone asks — how did illy see the impact of price on consumption? Was there, is there something that you think will continue this way, or how do you see this impact?
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Illy, A. (2025, May 13). ANDREA ILLY - Programa especial! [Interview transcript]. Café, Logo Existo por Mari Proença. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1183915/
MLA
Andrea Illy. "ANDREA ILLY - Programa especial!." Café, Logo Existo por Mari Proença, 13 May. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1183915/.
BibTeX
@misc{illy2025_1183915,
author = {Andrea Illy},
title = {ANDREA ILLY - Programa especial!},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Café, Logo Existo por Mari Proença. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1183915/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
