Cafés El Magnífico invests in product traceability with Easy WMS

Cafés El Magnífico: more than 60 years of savouring the best beans

Cafés El Magnífico was created in the 1960s on the foundations of a family-owned corner shop. Since then, it has enjoyed an excellent reputation among Barcelona’s roasters, thanks to its high-quality coffee. The company has imported fine coffees since 1987. It roasts a careful selection of raw beans sourced from coffee-producing countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Peru. The final result is evaluated in tastings during rigorous quality control before reaching customers’ cups. Founded in 1962, coffee roaster Cafés El Magnífico distributes the best coffees from Africa and Latin America to wholesale clients worldwide through its online store and coffee shops in Barcelona.

When coffee is a passion and each bean is artisanally roasted to enhance its aromas, the traceability of this fruit’s seeds is crucial. This need led Cafés El Magnífico, a renowned roaster from Barcelona, to implement Mecalux’s Easy WMS warehouse management system in its facility in the city of Cornellà de Llobregat (Spain). The business supplies clients around the world from this site.

“We relocated to a warehouse with greater capacity and decided to automate management of our logistics processes. We wanted to integrate them with accounting to facilitate the receipt of materials and maintain tighter control over our stock and traceability. Likewise, we were looking to expedite order fulfilment,” says Anna O’Flynn, Head of Operations, Projects and Logistics at Cafés El Magnífico. Until now, this company — started in a family-run corner shop in the 1960s — organised its fine coffees manually and monitored its inventory numbers through an accounting software program.

In addition to roasting the precious beans that will eventually become delicious coffee, Cafés El Magnífico sells accessories such as grinders, moka pots (stovetop espresso) and French press coffee makers, bottles, carafes and cups. The logistics facility also houses a wide variety of bulk loose-leaf teas and biodegradable tea bags from the Sans & Sans brand. In total, it manages 650 SKUs. Raw materials arrive in Barcelona from countries with a deep-rooted coffee-making tradition, including Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Peru.

“We use the first in, first out (FIFO) method for our food products. Our top priority is to maintain logistics traceability to ensure high quality,” says O’Flynn. She underlines that with Easy WMS, Cafés El Magnífico will establish minimum stock levels to trigger alerts when it becomes necessary to place a new order with suppliers. This will ensure uninterrupted flows of goods to all clients. Easy WMS is the nerve centre of the facility. It organises all activities, from receiving to picking and distribution.

In the Cafés El Magnífico warehouse, orders are classified into three types: those that supply the brand’s shops in Barcelona, those sent wholesale to clients in Europe and Saudi Arabia and purchases made through the company’s e-commerce portal.

“It’s amazing to see how much phone communication has declined. Now, order details — such as grind or bag type — arrive directly at each worker’s terminal,” says O’Flynn. Better coordination has translated into fewer errors and faster fulfilment. Meanwhile, the generation of a movement history provides the company with more information about its logistics processes.

Cafés El Magnífico accelerates shipping

Easy WMS coordinates with Cafés El Magnífico’s ERP system to receive information on the raw materials scheduled to arrive and orders to be fulfilled. This way, the warehouse knows the batches and expiry dates of the products prior to their arrival and slotting. When preparing orders, Easy WMS instructs operators to pick items, starting from the nearest and moving towards the farthest. In doing this, it designs the most efficient pick path. Subsequently, the workers complete the orders and place them in the shipping area according to their destination.

“Once the team understood how Easy WMS worked, everything became much smoother. Operators finish orders much faster and with fewer mistakes. Plus, now that they don’t have to answer as many calls, they can focus on serving our clients,” says O’Flynn. By digitalising the goods receipt process and slotting products in line with turnover, picking and shipping, the company has succeeded in boosting logistics operations in its centre in Cornellà de Llobregat.

Cafés El Magnífico has gained considerable experience in the coffee industry over the years, visiting the countries of origin of several varieties and attending numerous trade shows and conferences. The business sought the advice of Mecalux’s warehousing experts to continue sharing its passion for coffee with the world effectively. With Easy WMS software, the finest aromas will maintain their presence in international markets and the brand will be empowered to meet increasing demand.

Once the team understood how Easy WMS worked, everything became much smoother. Now, they can focus on serving our clients.