The Cia. Lilla was founded by an italian immigrant in 1918, Mr. Vitantonio Lilla.
Previously, he had owned a coffee roasting in São Paulo downtown, the business went well up to World War 1 start, and he no longer was able to import spare parts for his european equipment.
Thus, he started manufacturing on his own whatever he needed, and afterwards also to meet the needs of his colleagues in the business. Such in tandem business went so welll that he shut down his coffee roasting business and started a coffee machine factory.
The following step was the launch of the first 100% Brazilian ball roaster, which was the first step for a long history of 100 years of pioneering.
Always keeping focus in new discoveries and in the development of new technologies, Lilla reached some technological landmarks, in 1968 launched the first roaster with no cooling, based in sheer heat transfer by convection, yielding a noticeable reduced roasting loss of roasted coffee.
Then it came the ecological roasters with hot air recirculation system to eliminate smoke, optimized energetic efficiency and performance, and continuous self-cleaning to avoid cleaning maintenance costs.
In 1985 we lauched the Opus roaster with roasting time reduced by half. There were the following evolutions:
Opus 2G in 1990, Opus 3G in 2005and Opus 4G in 2015.
This has been our trajectory on these 100 years of life; always researching, innovating and searching for the state-of-the-art technology.
Lilla roasters are a reference for performance, low fuel consumption,
efficiency in reduced roasting loss and customization, always meeeting
each client specific needs.
Inspired by the philosophy to always push forward, Lilla, that by that time supplied exclusively internal market, in 1982 started exporting its equipments to United States, which became a significant market for the company. Many other countries followed this trend: Japan, England, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, among others. Today we are present in different continents, 60 countries use in their production line the proven Brazilian technology from Lilla. In Brazil, Lilla marks presence in more than 1,000 roasters plants of high standards of quality.
Among the technologies developed by Lilla, the highlight goes to the “Built in After Burner”, a system that allows to reuse all the air generated during the roasting, eliminating the need of an after burner and allowing fuel savings in the process.
Findings like this are constantly tested by experts consultants from all over the world who visit Lilla factory. They perform analysis of different roasting systems, profile curves and confirm, hands-on, the superior Brazilian technology from Lilla.
Towards the future after 100 years in operation, Lilla has the fundamentals of seriousness, skills and mainly respect for the customers.