Today in Milano we toured the Starbucks Reserve Roasterie and the Armani Museum while also spending some free time in the city.
The Milanese Starbucks itself is a story of perseverance and success, as the company, knowing how picky Italians are with their coffee, performed a year of market research before opening their location in Italy in September 2018. The Milan location also serves multiple purposes in the supply chain, as it is both a retailer and manufacturer that supplies other Starbucks around the world with freshly roasted coffee beans. The roastery reminded me of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with all of its machines and pipes that carried the beans from the ginormous roaster to either dispensaries behind the counter or an area to be packaged and shipped to other locations. Also present along the wall was a world map that displayed the green-certified coffee-growing locations that Starbucks owns and sources their coffee from, all of which were along the equator. Controlling the harvesting, roasting, and sales of their coffee enables Starbucks to be vertically integrated, which is a risk-averse strategy used to prevent supply chain disruptions and price gouging by suppliers. During the tour we were treated to a delicious cup of coffee that was sourced from La Esmeralda Farm in Guatemala and also were shown the fascinating roasting and packaging process by friendly employees.
Our tour of Starbucks was followed by some free time around Il Duomo where several of us enjoyed a concert by a local musician who played and sang American songs with his guitar and harmonica. For lunch, we stopped at a pizza ristorante called “Piz”, and what surprised me most about this restaurant was that they began bringing us food before we entered or asked for a table. The staff was very accommodating for our large group and the pizzas were eccellente!
After lunch, we went on a tour of the Armani fashion museum where we were saw outfits from collections throughout the history of the company. Compared with the vibrant and bright Calabrese-inspired Versace collections that I observed earlier this week, many of the Armani collections gave off a rich and creamy feel similar to dark chocolate. While Versace and Armani differed on their ideas for their fashion, I was pleased to learn from our guide the great mutual respect for one another, especially at Versace’s funeral in Il Duomo di Milano when Armani decided to enter in the side of the church rather than the front so the attention could be on Versace rather than himself.
Overall, today was una bella giornata and a presto domani!