30 January 2023

WISAG Catering takes over chicco di caffè with 142 coffee bars

Frankfurt am Main, 30 January 2023 – WISAG Catering Holding GmbH & Co. KG has acquired the coffee bar brand chicco di caffè at the turn of the year. With 300 employees and 142 cafés in locations such as company headquarters, clinics and universities, the brand is the market leader in Germany among coffee bar providers in captive locations. The previous majority owner of chicco di caffè was Paragon Partners, a German investment firm based in Munich. WISAG Catering Holding has taken over all shares in chicco di caffè.

Within WISAG Catering Holding, chicco di caffè will remain an independent brand in the future. The previous managing directors Ralf Meyer and Manuel Müller will continue to manage the company. As a result, chicco di caffè will become the fourth corporate pillar of WISAG Catering – alongside Company Catering, Healthcare Catering and Event Catering.

“This acquisition represents a decisive step in our development in the area of snack catering and advances WISAG’s overarching goal of sustainable growth. In the modern working world with diverse and hybrid work concepts, all-day snacking is an important complement to the classic company restaurant. We want to position ourselves much more strongly in this area,” says Martin Riebschläger, member of the Management Board of WISAG Facility Service Holding AG, to which the catering division belongs. WISAG already operates around 30 coffee bars and has its own organic and Fairtrade-certified coffee brand, Doña Victoria. Martin Riebschläger adds: “We warmly welcome our new colleagues and look forward to working with them. With their very similar corporate cultures, strong service orientation and high standards of sustainability, the two dedicated teams are an excellent fit.”

“We would like to thank Ralf Meyer and Manuel Müller as well as all employees for their extraordinary commitment over the past years and wish chicco di caffè a successful future,” commented Dr. Krischan von Moeller, Senior Partner at Paragon Partners, the previous majority owner of chicco di caffè.

“Being part of the WISAG family gives us the opportunity to win new customers and further strengthen our brand without having to compromise on our standards of quality and sustainability,” says a delighted Ralf Meyer, who founded chicco di caffè in 2003. The brand focuses on high-quality snacks with coffee specialties, on high service quality through permanent training and further education of the baristas, and on sustainability. In Bad Aibling, south of Munich, chicco di caffè produces coffee in its own organic, Fairtrade and climate-neutral certified roastery. Customers can also have the coffee beans delivered directly to their homes via an online store. In 2022, the chicco di caffè flagship store in Munich became the first coffee bar in Germany to receive the EU “Green Coffeebar” seal developed by K&P Consulting.

About WISAG Facility Service – specialist for real estate
The core business of WISAG Facility Service is technical and infrastructural services for real estate: facility management, building services, building cleaning, security & service, catering, garden & landscape maintenance and consulting & management. The individual service areas are among the most important providers in their respective sectors. The real estate expert offers special service packages for different segments. For example, for the healthcare and social services sectors, for retail and logistics, for hotels and for the housing industry.

With more than 19,800 customers, around 31,000 employees and sales of 1.223 billion euros in 2021, the company is one of the leading facility service providers in Germany. The company is part of the WISAG Group, which operates at more than 250 locations in Germany and abroad with almost 50,000 employees.

About Paragon
Founded in 2004, Paragon is one of the leading independent private equity firms in Europe, with more than EUR 1.2 billion of equity under management. Paragon works closely with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth and operational excellence. The investment portfolio covers various industries and currently comprises 16 companies. The firm is based in Munich, Germany. For more information about the firm, please visit www.paragon.de/en.