On this episode of Emerging Brands, Michele Waits, Vice President Marketing of illycaffè North America, Inc., talks about the brand's history, new real estate opportunities, and direct to consumer trends. Waits shares the long history of illycaffè, saying “The history of Illy is relatively long I think for many coffee companies. It was founded in 1933 in Trieste Italy which is an important port city for europe and in a place where all coffee comes into Europe and it's a family company so we are in the third generation of the illy family playing an important role in managing the company. There is a heritage of both. Rich Italian coffee culture but also innovation with the illy brand and the illy family are known to be the first to bring an espresso machine to the marketplace many years ago.” Adding, Illy has been around for more than 80 years and has been in the US for a little over 20 years and we are happy to say that we are making it as I mentioned a concerted effort to really grow our presence here in the us.” Waits talks about new real estate opportunities, she says, “there are opportunities for us to really build our brand and to expose new customers to Illy in airports. We have been really excited to gain new business in airports around the country and particularly in markets where we are placing some strategic bets. So airport is definitely a big part of our real estate priority.” When it comes to the Illy store model Waits says, “we are also seeing opportunities to really refocus and clarify if you will our store model and so we are experimenting a bit with some new services and some new products in some of our stores that we hope to roll out once we get some good learnings.” Waits discusses direct-to-consumer trends during the pandemic and then post pandemic. She says that, “what we're seeing is there is a shift in some cases back from online to offline to brick and mortar. But I would say not all of the gains that we got in direct-to-consumer have been passed back to brick and mortar. There are definitely more people shopping online both in our E shop and also on retailer’s sites and so there's definitely that increase. But the growth in direct-to-consumer has slowed a bit since the height of the pandemic.” To hear about Illy’s retail tech innovation, commitment to sustainability, and their Welcome On The Road To Happiness campaign tune in to this episode of Emerging Brands Podcast.