Hej! Hi! Hola!
We are Hanne and David, and we are obsessed with coffee, branding & business. But our journey to starting Lassgård is anything but the usual "we-love-coffee-so-we-started-a-company" story. No, this is a story of family ties, Colombian adventures, and an unexpected meeting that changed our lives.
The year was 2017. We set course for Medellín, Colombia, in search of David's biological parents and to discover his cultural roots. This was David's first time setting foot in his home country since adoption, and we were armed with a few clues and a big dose of hope. But life is full of twists—despite our best efforts, we found no family.
Feeling both disappointed and adventurous, we decided to do something different—take a trip to a traditional coffee farm high in the Colombian Andes. There, in the middle of rolling coffee plantations, we met the Acevedo family. They have been brewing coffee for over 100 years and we knew right away that we had stumbled upon something special. We're not just talking about coffee here, but liquid magic and high quality coffee beans!
The Acevedo family had just begun their journey towards producing sustainable specialty coffee that they wanted to sell directly to customers. And their coffee? Without a doubt the best we have ever tasted! We quickly realized that we hadn't just found a coffee farm—we had found a calling.
We returned to Sweden, but nothing felt the same anymore. David juggled his tech startup life between Sweden and Silicon Valley, and Hanne fought for children's rights as a social worker. But our thoughts kept dreaming back to the Colombian coffee farm and that first sip of Acevedo's magical brew.
When the pandemic hit, life slowed down. Hanne was on parental leave with our second child, and David was stranded from his job due to a travel ban. We decided to reach out to Acevedos again, ordered home 10 kg of coffee and invited friends and family over to share the taste experience that stuck in our minds. The response? They loved it! And a crazy idea was born—why not share this fantastic coffee with all of Sweden?
Starring: LASSGÅRD.
Now we just needed the perfect name. The choice was obvious: Lassgård, Hanne's surname and one of Scandinavia's most recognizable names. A name with history, just like our coffee.
Between 2021 and 2024, we took care of everything ourselves in bulding our own coffee brand—from packaging and tasting to e-commerce and delivery. Our direct-from-the-farm coffee spread like wildfire to consumers, supermarkets, restaurants and small shops all over Sweden. But something was missing. We needed to get closer to the origin.
With a longing to really be a part of the whole coffee process, we took the plunge and moved to South America, to the heart of coffee production in Medellín. Living where the coffee is grown gave us the inspiration we needed to take Lassgård to the next level.
It's now 2024, and we've teamed up with an amazing team of designers, photographers and coffee producers in Medellín. Together we work to bring you the best specialty coffee from the Andes, delivered in a sustainable and responsible way.