Just received a press release that Domori will sell an 80% stake in the company to Illy Group S.p.A – an Italian coffee group. The founders of Domori will retain a 20% stake and be ‘future guarantors’ of the company.

Early indications suggest quality and direction will be maintained, I hope more details will follow soon.

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

Pathetic.

And Domori called itself “Cacao Cult”? We call this ‘selling out’.

Sad Day.

Oh my. I hope this isn’t the end of a great chocolate manufacturer. I mean Illy is not that bad. As a coffee company they have a very high standard of quality.

Any news on the cause of this deal?

And by the way how is Scharffenberger doing under the Hershey’s banner? Anyone noticed a decline in quality?

regards,
Thomas

And at least Illy isn’t the bad big wolf in the chocolate industry ;)

that 20% does sound a wee bit small…

if what you say is the case, eshra, and it’s all just about money makin’, then i am just as p*ssed off as you are.
but might it not possibly be that domori is in such a bad spot financially that they’d agree to such a move because their hands are tied?

quote:

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Originally posted by alex_h

i find this interesting: for gianluca franzoni the name domori represents cacao and coffee.

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Is this from the domori website? If so, since when is it there?
Maybe this is some kind of plot that has been planned right from the founding of domori. Imagine it was all just a fake brand to lure people to Illy.
Or maybe im just a bit low on bloodsugar. I’m gonna grab an Amedei bar now. See Gianluca there are others, we don’t need you! We are not dependant on your delightful, scrumptious, heavenly chocolate bars.

As Sebastian noted, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a continuous high level of quality from Domori for a couple reasons. First of all, who is to say that quality will diminish? I can clearly remember when the quality of a few of Domori’s bars diminished drastically–so much so that I refused to purchase any of said bars for over a year until I was sure that the quality had been restored. If anything, perhaps, this business venture might allow quality to improve. Besides, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that Gianluca would allow his company to go into shambles by a larger conglomeration such as Illy. It’s almost like a mother chimpanzee freely relinquishing her newborn son to an invading (homicidal) male.

I guess time will tell if this is a symbiotic or a parasitic union. But I’m really not pessimistic about the whole thing. Like I previously said Illy is a quality company and Domori can benefit from the resources of an international scale distributor. I for sure won’t stop buying and enjoying Domori any time soon.
I’d still like to know more about the circumstances that led to this acquisition. News about it are slowly spreading on the web, so maybe some more information will arise soon.

quote:

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Originally posted by ellie

Don’t understand, how consuming Domori chocolate ( real, not fake, btw) will lure you buy Illy coffee? Where is the plot? I can not imagine neither Illy chcolate replacing Domori… And fast developing fine chocolate production could benefit the additional capital from quite established coffee industry.
Do you see coffee producers as rivals,coming into fine chocolate brand with intention to spoil it? Industrial espionage?

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I’m sorry I think I went a little bit overboard with my conspiracy theory. I think I was just short of my daily dose of chocolate and if that happens I’m getting a little bit ironic. Please don’t take this whole plot thing too seriously.
All those thoughts were highly speculative and don’t really represent my own believes, but were mere thought-provocing impulses.
Nevertheless I still think that this acquisition was mostly induced by financial considerations and not because Domori wanted to profit from Illy’s know-how and distribution expertise.