Barista quality at the push of a button

Whether for a splendid start into the day or a relaxed lunchtime, in our fast-moving times, a hot and delicious coffee is a welcome break from the hectic daily routine. A simple filter coffee is no longer enough for many consumers. They rely on a high-quality coffee experience. The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Eversys also recognised this trend.

Since its founding in 2009 by Jean-Paul In-Albon and Robert Bircher, the company has been redefining the boundaries of automatic coffee brewing: Eversys has analysed all steps and skills of a professional barista and combined them into a concept for intelligent and

Driven by the mission that high-quality coffee no longer needs to be exclusively handmade, Eversys combines traditional Italian espresso machines with the intelligence of so-called super automatics fully-automated coffee machines where all relevant settings can be individually controlled. At the push of a button, the user gets a coffee as would be served in an Italian bar.

Each machine is hand made in Switzerland with high-quality materials, precise manufacturing, highest performance and reliability. The company, with its more than 150 employees, has now produced more than 15,000 machines. Cafs, restaurants, and contract caterers all over the world rely on the high quality of the Eversys machines. Of course, the coffee machine manufacturer has also high demands on the manufacturers of the components of his machines.

In 2015, at the beginning of the development of the fully automated CAMEO coffee machine, Eversys was looking for a suitable solution for generating a pneumatic circuit capable of producing high-quality milk foam. A specific regulation of the air volume flowing into the system was crucial in to determining the milk foam's texture. The solution also had to meet the stringent requirements of food certification as well as the demand for a long service life.

With KNF, the Swiss coffee machine manufacturer found a reliable expert. KNF is a competent and responsive partner who quickly understood our specific requirements, says Jonathan Besse, head of mechanical engineering at Eversys, summarising the cooperation. Within a few weeks, Eversys was provided a first prototype.

Since the coffee machine manufacturer was still in the concept phase, it profited from the fact that KNF could produce very small batches according to the customer requirements. So, we had the opportunity to define the pump according to our developments and to continuously adjust it.

Today, Eversys uses two different pump types to regulate the air volume flowing through the system. KNF diaphragm pump NMP 830 is used in the smaller single-consumer E'Line series. The larger commercial CAMEO series relies on the KNF NPK 03 swing piston gas pump.

In the development of the optimum pump, Eversys focused on a long service life, required pump performance, and quiet operation. On the one hand, the continuous operation of the pump had to be unnoticeable inside the cafeteria; on the other hand, dense milk foam had to be generated often and quickly despite the high pressure required to do so.

To meet these requirements, KNF not only focused on the individual pump but on its impact to the overall system. This way, possible optimizations could be identified in the overall context, and respective KNF components could be developed and implemented.

For example, vibrations have been reduced by using a damper plate, and the integration of a filter ensured quiet operation. Previously, we had to independently integrate individual components into our pumps for optimisation, says Besse. KNF gave us the opportunity to set the focus on what is essential the complete machine while the KNF experts were responsible for the pump system.

This approach saved us valuable time during the development process. Increasing the pumping performance for our application also allowed us to finally use only one pump per machine, where for some configurations we would have had to use two instead.

Since its founding, Eversys has increased its turnover by more than 50% each year. For the Swiss company, this success is, however, no reason to ease up. Quite the opposite: The coffee machine manufacturer continuously extends his portfolio. The cooperation between Eversys and KNF continues with the development of the third series of Eversys coffee machines. Here again, a KNF pump solution will guarantee ideal milk foam.

Over the past years, Eversys and KNF have developed a valuable and long-term business relationship, says Besse. With this new project, we continue to rely on the comprehensive and responsive approach that we get with a KNF partnership.