Italian Tradition Meets Digital Innovation

The past year has been tough for most of the business world, and coffee distribution, retail, and especially hospitality were no exception. Yet amid this global pandemic and the ensuing economic meltdown, Caffé Barbera set its sights on the future and made the bold move towards innovation by partnering with Algorand.

By accepting digital currency (including the leading stablecoins) on Algorand’s high performing blockchain founded by MIT Professor and 2012 Turing Award-winner, Silvio Micali, the company is fulfilling its commitment to that forward-looking strategy.

Caffè Barbera is the first coffee producer in Europe to enable digital currency payments through its e-commerce website. The historic coffee brand now accepts payments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple for all of its consumer coffee products. This is the first phase, with a future planned roll out into its global Italian coffee house franchise business, Café Barbera. This move will ensure that the franchise company extends its strategic innovations into the competitive hospitality sector.

Even for an industry steeped in heritage, Caffè Barbera has a unique history. In the 1870s, Domenico Barbera the ‘Coffee Wizard’ founded the business, Italy’s oldest coffee roastery, in the South of Italy. 150 years later the mission of the company remains: producing exceptional coffee, with a distinct Southern Italian flair. In fact, the company is still owned and operated by the fifth and sixth generation descendants of the original ‘Coffee Wizard’. Today Caffè Barbera is a global brand, present in more than 60 countries spanning five continents.
“At the beginning of the year, we decided we wanted to do more, to offer more, and we realised that we couldn’t do it alone so we began looking for a partner. We found Algorand and were very impressed by their team and mission. We also saw the opportunity to extend this partnership into our global franchise business,” says Elio Barbera, 6th generation of the company

Algorand’s blockchain platform allows multiple parties to make secure payments to one another and immediately settle their transactions with minimal transaction fees. This permits individuals and businesses to send and receive digital currency payments in a secure, scalable, and decentralized manner.

By using the Algorand platform Caffè Barbera will have access to payment solutions that cover the last mile of the blockchain ecosystem and enhance a businesses’ ability to receive, store, and use cryptocurrency payments. This make everyday transactions with digital currencies secure, seamless, and accessible. The pure proof-of-stake protocol is also energy-friendly, another point of alignment with Caffè Barbera.

What’s more, the partnership with Algorand will extend beyond business-to-consumer payments. Using Bleumi Pay, an innovative payment aggregator for digital currency payments, with its integration to Algorand’s Blockchain, Caffè Barbera will also accept digital currency payments directly from distributors, bringing the digital currency revolution to business-to-business transactions as well.

To celebrate the new Algorand Partnership, Caffè Barbera is offering an exclusive promotion for all of its customers. Anyone who purchases products with ALGO cryptocurrency will receive 20% off their purchase. The discount will be automatically calculated in the purchase and will be live from April 1st, 2021.

“We are committed to digital transformation and believe blockchain technologies have an enormous potential across our businesses. The move towards digital currencies is in some ways inevitable. This will bring obvious advantages in efficiency, agility, and greater financial inclusion. Even in a traditional sector like coffee and hospitality, in the next 5-10 years, digital currencies will transform online business across sectors. This is the right moment to invest and experiment with these technologies. Fortune favours the bold.” – Elio Barbera