Gevalia

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Gevalia is the largest coffee roastery in Scandinavia. It is located in Gävle (Gevalia in Latin).

Gevalia was introduced in 1853 in Sweden by Victor Theodore Engwall & Co. After 120 years as a family company it was sold in 1971 to Kraft Foods.

Gevalia produces 40 000 metric tons of coffee every year. Most of it is sold in Sweden, Denmark and in the Baltic area, but some is exported to America.

Gevalia began North American sales, via mail-order delivery service, in the 1980s. Gevalia is perhaps most well known for its introductory offer of the incentive of a free coffeemaker and other coffee related incentives of relatively higher value brand name coffeemakers for the cost of shipping for trying their coffees. These offers were seen in magazine advertisements, direct mailings, and television commercials until their intense internet presence of online advertisements in banner and email form. Some of these Gevalia.com advertisements were the basis of the 2005 Hypertouch based lawsuit.

A mainstream supermarket brand in Europe, Gevalia is marketed in the United States as an expensive, ultra-premium brand.

Gevalia is the primary coffee brand for the Tassimo coffee maker in the United States, but notice that this machine is developed by Kraft Foods.

[edit] News

In 2005, Kraft was sued by Hypertouch, an ISP, for spamming its Gevalia coffee brand. Kraft was accused of sending multiple waves of junk advertisement to the ISP's customers, the action brought under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 act. The parties resolved their dispute by mutual agreement and the litigation has been dismissed.

[edit] Trivia

Gevalia coffee was blatantly advertised by Rob Corddry on a 2003 episode of The Daily Show, where a photo showing a crate of Gevalia left outside Qusay Hussein's home in the hot Iraqi sun was offered as definitive proof that Qusay Hussein was really dead - since no-one would leave such "fantastically aromatic coffee beans out in the sun like that".