At the beginning of the last century the economical situation in Graubünden was desperate. A lot of people from the southern valleys who could speak Italian emigrated to Italy in search of work and among them was Giuseppe Badilatti, then only a young boy. He found a job in Rome in a grocers shop where he was taught to roast coffee.
In 1914, shortly before the first world war broke out, Giuseppe Badilatti had to return home, foreigners were no longer given visas to stay in the country. Back in Zuoz, he opened his own grocery shop where he began to sell roasted coffee, in those days an unknown product in Switzerland. The basis for a sucessful family business had been laid.
In 1947 his son Giacomo took over and started to roast his own coffee which he named „Badilatti“ and sold it in his shop as well as to the growing hotel trade in the region.
In 1976 Daniel Badilatti, by now the third generation, concentrated the business activities fully on green coffee trading and roasting and gave up the grocery shop and so, the success story of Engadine coffee, which began nearly 100 years ago, keeps growing.
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