MILAN - Italian premium coffee maker Illycaffe will pay a cash bonus to its employees to help them cope with increasingly stretched finances, its chief executive told Il Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday.
The Ukraine crisis has lowered economic growth expectations around the world while soaring inflation is taking a heavy toll on household finances, especially in Europe.
Illycaffe CEO Cristina Scocchia said the company would split a 500,000 euro ($493,000) bonus pool among its 1,350 employees worldwide by the end of the month.
"We need to combine profits and social values," she said.
Scocchia also said the company's raw materials and logistics costs had increased 20% this year but it had decided to compress its margins rather than raise final selling prices.
She also confirmed a plan for the group to go public by 2026.
($1 = 1.0142 euros)