MILAN, Italy – This year, Milan is not just a world fashion and design capital: thanks to Expo it is also a world food centre. And coffee was always going to play a major part in an event of such global significance.
From 30 September to 1 October, the Global Coffee Forum will be held in conjunction with the International Coffee Council, which is being held for the first time in Italy, from 28 September to 2 October.
The international meeting on coffee, for which Host2015 is acting as a partner, is promoted by ICO, the International Coffee Organization, the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry, the International Coffee Committee, EXPO Milano and Fiera Milano Congressi, with the support of Illy and Lavazza.
The event will divide coffee into the three areas of pleasure, health and sustainability and will bring together the sector’s most authoritative exponents at the Stella Polare Congress Centre at Fieramilano, in Rho, a short distance from EXPO and its Coffee Cluster.
Speakers will include, Robério Silva, Executive Director of ICO; Andrea Illy, Chairman of the ICO Promotion and Market Development Committee and the CEO of Illy; Giuseppe Lavazza, Vice President of the Lavazza Group, along with Ric Rhinehart, SCAA Executive Director; Patrick Hoffer, President of the Coffee Promotion Consortium and Jeffrey Sachs, Head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
During the event, on 1 October, the first “International Coffee Day” (ICD) will be held, another event of global significance.
Announced at the Forum itself, International Coffee Day, supported by ICO and featuring a series of initiatives worldwide, inspired by principles of culture, health and sustainability, is being held in partnership with Oxfam, one of the world’s most important international confederations of NGOs, made up of 17 organisations from different countries.