Lavazza launches single-serve tablets to make espresso

Lavazza is bringing its espresso tablets to the U.S., aiming to loosen Keurig Dr Pepper’s grip on the single-serve coffee category.

The Italian coffee giant unveiled Tablì last year and launched the new brewing system first in Italy. The tablets, made of compressed ground coffee without a coating, binder or gelatin, can only be used with a Tablì coffee machine made by Lavazza. Each tablet is marked with the words “100% coffee. At launch, the tabs will come in five varieties: espresso, double espresso, decaf espresso, super crema and lungo, or a “long shot” espresso brewed with more water.

“The result that we’ve been able to achieve was through a very complicated industrial process in order to be able to have [the coffee tablet] very compact, to be able to deliver it without destroying it, to have it able to work in a coffee machine,” Lavazza CEO Antonio Baravalle told CNBC.

Tablì is the result of Lavazza’s acquisition of the Italian startup Caffemotive in 2020. The new system took five years of development, more than 15 patents and a new production facility in Gattinara, Italy, to bring it to market.

Its launch in the U.S. comes as the country becomes an increasingly important part of Lavazza’s business. In 2025, the company’s North American turnover — or revenue — jumped 26.9%, according to Lavazza.

“We are strongly investing in the USA because we think it is an important space for us,” Baravalle said, adding that Lavazza aims to eventually have a €1 billion ($1.15 billion) business in the U.S.

“The brand is growing, in terms of equity, extremely well,” Baravalle said. “We’ve spent a lot of money, for us, in the last two years, and we’re going to do that for the next five years.”

More than 130 years after its founding, the Lavazza family still privately owns the Italian company. In 2025, it reported net profit of €92 million on net revenues of €3.9 billion, according to Lavazza’s latest annual report.

In the U.S., it generates more than $100 million in annual dollar sales through retailers like Target and Walmart. For context, Keurig reported annual net sales of $3.99 billion for its U.S. coffee segment in 2025.

The majority of Keurig’s coffee revenue comes from its K-cups. In the U.S., Keurig has dominated the single-serve coffee market for more than a decade, although Nestle’s Nespresso has won over customers in recent years. Keurig holds about half of the total U.S. market share for fresh ground coffee pods, according to data from Euromonitor International. Nespresso holds a roughly 7% share.

Of course, Lavazza sells K-cup pods in the U.S. through a partnership with Keurig.

Baravalle said he does not expect to beat Keurig or Nespresso.

“For us, it’s important to find our own space, but we are talking about two giants, and one of them, we have an important contract with that we are very happy [with],” he said.

In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the beverage giant with making misleading statements over the recyclability of its pods. Keurig agreed to pay $1.5 million in penalties without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings. The company’s website now reads, “Check locally, not recycled in many communities.”

Nespresso’s aluminum pods are more easily recycled through the brand’s free mail-back service.

As Lavazza launches a potential competitor, Keurig has its own plans for plastic- and aluminum-free coffee pods. This fall, the company plans to launch K-Rounds, which uses a plant-based coating to preserve the ground coffee inside the puck-shaped pod. The innovation is thanks to a multi-year partnership with Delica Switzerland, the maker of the CoffeeB system, which uses plastic-free coffee balls that have gained traction in parts of Europe.

Lavazza will officially launch Tablì in the U.S. in August. A $99.99 bundle that includes the machine, a 60-count variety pack of tabs and a milk frother is available now to pre-order on the company’s website.

In May, Baravalle said the company was still determining its pricing strategy as it conducted consumer research to understand how much coffee drinkers were willing to pay.

“We are also waiting to see how some big, huge competitors will move in the industry, trying to offer something similar,” Baravalle said. “But, for sure, Lavazza has premium positioning, and we’re not going to do something different from that.”