Julius Meinl International (german: Julius Meinl AG, Meinl-Gruppe), also known simply as Julius Meinl, is a manufacturer and

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

foods and other

grocery A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

products. The company is based in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It is named after its founders Julius Meinl I and Julius Meinl II.

History

Julius Meinl I was the founder of a new category, selling ready roasted coffee for the first time in 1862. Julius Meinl III ceded control of the company to his son in 1987. The retail division of the group, except the high-profile flagship store in downtown Vienna, was sold to Rewe by Julius Meinl V in 1998–1999. Later the company's name was changed to Ragusa Beteiligungen, and the company was delisted from the Vienna Stock Exchange in February 2007. Today Julius Meinl is a leading coffee company in Austria, Central and Eastern Europe and selling coffees and teas in more than 70 countries. The leitmotif of the company is “How may I serve you?” to this day and 5th generation family members are still actively working in the business. Its “Pay with a Poem” campaign has been running since 2014, inspiring people worldwide to pay for their coffee or tea worldwide with a poem. Julius Meinl operates two coffee shops in the U.S., both on the North Side of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

, and one in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. Christina Meinl was appointed President of the Global Specialty Coffee Association in February 2020. Meinl aims to boost the sustainable specialty coffee agenda, expand the SCA's global network supporting local communities, and increase diversity within the organisation.

Logo

The first logo of the company was designed in 1924 by Joseph Binder, a Viennese graphic designer. The logo depicted a dark-skinned boy with a red fez on his head, as a hint to the origin of the coffee. The design has changed significantly over the years, but the silhouette of a boy has remained its core part. In 2004, Italian designer

Matteo Thun Matteo Thun (full name Mathäus Antonius Maria Graf von Thun and Hohenstein, 17 June 1952 Bolzano, Italy) is an Italian architect and designer. Biography Matteo Thun was born in Bolzano in 1952 as the first son of the South Tyrolean entrepreneuri ...

has performed a redesign of the logo, making him look upright and using a single colour for the whole logo, effectively eliminating the boy's dark skin colour. In 2007, an initiative called ''Mein Julius'' (English: "My Julius") started using the original version of the logo to protest against racist stereotypes and misinterpretations of Africa and the colonial period. This initiative has not indicated that they used the pre-redesign version of the logo, which led to criticism of the initiative itself.

External links

*
USA website
*

References

Coffee companies of Austria Food and drink companies based in Vienna Food and drink companies established in 1862 Retail companies established in 1862 Food and drink companies of Austria 1862 establishments in the Austrian Empire Austrian brands {{Austria-company-stub