Italian coffee giant Kimbo is branching into a new gastronomic venture that should prove a hit this summer  the Kimbo Icecream Cup, the first expresso coffee ice-cream flavoured with 100% top quality arabica beans, in cooperation with Italian icecream manufacturers Algida.

Kimbo in one of the three leading Italian coffee producers, along with Illy and Lavazza, but it differs from the other two by its strong and lasting connection with its homeland of Naples, the city of espresso par excellence.

The Kimbo company was founded in 1963 by the three Rubino brothers, under the name Caffè do Brasil. Originally a strictly family business, its fame soon spread. Success followed success and production grew till the present state-of-the-art factory, situated in the suburbs of Naples at Melito di Napoli, employs some 150 people and processes 23 million kgs of coffee per year, with a turnover of  170 million in 2013.  Its clients include La Scala Opera House in Milan, the chain of 700 Autogrill restaurant and food outlets on the Italian toll highways and some 1,500 caffès all over Italy.

Although the main market remains Italy, the exportation business is in constant expansion, with France the leading importer of Kimbo coffee, followed by the UK and Germany in the EU. Further afield, the company is making its mark in the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa, and turns an attentive eye towards the new emerging markets in the Far East. The success of the brand name abroad convinced the company last year to change its name from Caffè do Brasil to the more easily remembered Kimbo S.p.a.

The factory is open to visitors upon request. Guided tours illustrate the entire production process, starting with the Quality Control Centre, where the raw beans are analysed and selected, followed by the miscela  (the blending of different kinds of coffee beans to obtain variations in intensity and flavour), then the macinatura (grinding) and the crucial process of  torrefazione (roasting), with temperatures computer-controlled, ending with the vast vacuum-packing plant. Kimbo is also the Italian leader in the production of capsules for automatic coffee-machines, which are proving more and more popular with the younger generation. The faithful old moka may be on the way out for the preparation of a really good cup of home-brewed coffee, but, for aroma and flavour, nothing can ever beat the coffee produced by a professional Italian barman in (preferably) a Neapolitan caffè.

M. Stenhouse

Info: www.kimbo.it