SEB Professional Beverage launches La San Marco to expand espresso reach

Manual espresso is getting a louder sales pitch, and SEB Professional Beverage is putting La San Marco at the center of it with the international launch of the LA 125. For café owners and baristas, the message is clear: this is not just another machine line, but a heritage Italian platform meant to stand for speed, ritual and visible craft at the counter.

La San Marco says it has been making espresso coffee machines since 1920, with production centered in Gradisca d’Isonzo, in the province of Gorizia, Italy. Groupe SEB announced its acquisition of the family-run business on February 16, 2023, saying La San Marco manufactures, markets and distributes professional coffee machines and grinders and is a leader in the traditional lever-system segment. That heritage is now being pushed onto a wider stage through SEB Professional Beverage’s multi-brand ecosystem, which already includes WMF, Schaerer, Wilbur Curtis and Zummo.

The LA 125 is the first machine most operators will notice in that push. La San Marco describes it as designed to define a new generation of performance, style and sustainability for contemporary baristas and coffee shops. In practice, that positions it differently from the fully automated workhorses many venues lean on for consistency alone. The LA 125 is being framed as a statement piece for spaces that want espresso preparation to feel deliberate and visible, not hidden behind button-driven automation.

That matters because the professional equipment market has split into two clear camps: operators chasing throughput and those using equipment to shape the guest experience. SEB’s own Host Milano 2025 messaging said its brands help deliver consistent taste experiences for guests, and La San Marco was previewed at that show as part of the rollout. The brand’s continued 2026 activity, including news around a reserved content area and latte art, suggests the relaunch is being staged as an ongoing international push rather than a one-off product reveal.

For cafés, hotels and hospitality venues, the bigger signal is that premium espresso hardware still carries weight as branding at the bar. La San Marco gives SEB a way to compete at the heritage end of the market while reinforcing its broader beverage strategy. In a sector where the right machine can say as much about identity as the coffee in the cup, the LA 125 arrives as a very public argument for craft, lineage and showpiece design.