Karsten Ranitzsch’s passion for coffee goes back at least four decades, and it’s a lasting love affair. Soon, 40 years ago, he started his professional coffee journey with an apprenticeship in a coffee roastery in his hometown in Germany.
Today, as head of coffee at Nespresso, he leads the brand’s innovation in coffee. He devises new coffee concepts based on evolving consumer coffee habits and taste preferences. It’s a work that truly combines creativity with strict methodology. He looks for specific processing methods, new coffee varieties and terrains, studying the sensory realm of these regions and connecting with the farmers working the land. In ensuring the finest end results, an important element of what he does is to set high-quality standards to constantly deliver a best-in-class cup of coffee for the consumers
Success in Coffee Innovation
1.Coffee Is a People Business
Coffee has the ability to connect the craftsmanship of the coffee farmers with the consumers who enjoy the coffee. Nespresso has a unique position as we have a direct relationship with both the farmers and the consumers. From bean to cup, caring for these relationships is critical. So, how do we nurture these relationships?
• Have a consumer-first mindset. Ask yourself - how do you delight and surprise the consumer? What is the emotional dimension of coffee? Having a consumer-first approach, understanding what matters to them and the role coffee plays in their life is important to innovate in the right direction. For us at Nespresso, this is the foundation of what we do.
• The farmers are the true coffee artists. We work with more than 150,000 farmers within the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality program. Farmers who are visited at least once a year by one of the 600+ Nespresso agronomists. Nurturing the relationship with them and building trust is essential. To see the grandchildren of the coffee farmers we worked with 20 years ago is absolutely the most rewarding part of my job. Trust between us and the farmers is what allows us to innovate. It’s a pinnacle in innovation, but also for maintaining the highest standards of quality and sustainability.
2) Know Your North Star, Stay True to It Then You Can Push Boundaries
In order to please our consumers for us, quality is our north star. When we innovate - the perfect-tasting cup of coffee is what we always strive for. We would never destroy a value that the coffee farmers have created. Innovation never comes at the expense of Quality.
Coffee has the ability to connect the craftsmanship of the coffee farmers with the consumers who enjoy the coffee
• Push boundaries of what is possible and expected. You need to dare. An example of this is how we have not shied away from the Robusta bean. We use it as a spice, and this can really open up to what high-quality coffee is. You need to provoke and surprise. In our coffee offering, there is a possibility to brew an intense Palermo ristretto but also a Watermelon flavoured Ice-coffee long cup. You need to have patience. The launch of N°20 is the result of innovation 20 years in the making. For many years, we have had the dream to create the ultimate cup of coffee by trying to find the finest Arabica. This is indeed a true milestone for coffee innovation, not just for Nespresso.
• Find your source of inspiration. For me, inspiration can come from many different places and people, but one of the key ones is to experience the culture of coffee across the world. Just recently, I enjoyed the ‘fika’ in the Nordics, but also the unique coffee culture in India. They are so different, but still have so much in common. Another very important source of inspiration is travelling to coffee-producing countries, finding rare beans each one with very different flavours - and connecting with farmers who grow them and our agronomists.
3) Longterm Supply of High-Quality Coffee = A Sustainable Future for Coffee Farmers and Coffee Farming
You need to care for what is important for you today but also for the future. Coffee is mostly grown around the equator, a region heavily challenged by climate change - putting at risk the livelihood of millions of coffee farmers.
Nespresso’s care for coffee, its community, and nature and to secure the long-term supply of sustainable, highquality coffee led us to create the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program, codeveloped in partnership with Rainforest Alliance in 2003. What is unique about this program is that we buy from the same farmers year after year, giving them the security of a reliable, long-term partner. This helps them to build economic as well as environmental resilience, protecting their land and livelihoods so that future generations can enjoy the benefits of high-quality coffee. 2023 marks its twentieth anniversary, and together with the farmers, we are now on an ambitious transition path to regenerative agriculture.
We also don’t hesitate to go into regions just because they are under threat for various reasons. Here, our north star is to support the farmers and the farming communities, bringing back the green coffee industry there again and connecting their coffee with coffee drinkers across the world. In 2019, we brought back coffee from South Sudan, and today, you can drink coffee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In DRC, for example, we supported the development of Health clinics and potable water stations for the communities. It’s a project that enables consumers to drink coffees from a breadth of countries and regions; it allows for a broad pallet of coffees available while at the same time enabling coffee to be forced for good. There are not many coffee brands that can offer this.
