Nespresso also faces mounting criticism over the environmental impact of its pods.
雀巢胶囊咖啡机也因其咖啡荚对环境的影响而面临越来越多的批评。
(It does not release any figures for how many of its aluminium capsules end up dumped in landfill, rather than recycled.)
(铝胶囊最终被倾倒在垃圾填埋场而非回收利用,而雀巢并未公布其具体数字。)
Talk to people in the industry, and you get the sense that Nespresso’s golden age has passed.
跟行业的人交谈,你就会发现雀巢咖啡机的黄金时代已经过去。
“In the major markets, Nespresso’s getting close to saturation point, and there’s lots of competition,”
“在主要市场,雀巢咖啡机已经接近饱和了,而且还面临很多竞争。”
says Jean-Paul Gaillard, Nespresso’s former CEO. “The good years are over.”
前首席执行官珍·保罗·盖拉德说。“好日子已经过去了。”
Nespresso triumphed by selling itself as a sophisticated component of an elite, globalised lifestyle.
雀巢咖啡机成功地将其打造成精英的、全球化生活方式的精致组成部分。
Wherever you were in the world, you could be a Nespresso person, just as you could wear Nike trainers or use American Express.
不论你在哪里,你都可能是一个雀巢人,就像你可能穿着耐克运动鞋或使用美国运通服务一样。
Now, as that lifestyle looks increasingly bankrupt, it is learning to be just another coffee company.
随着这种生活方式看起来越来越没落,雀巢正在学着成为另一家咖啡公司。
Nespresso helped change the coffee world, but it seems as if the world has moved on.
雀巢的胶囊咖啡机帮助改变了咖啡世界,但似乎世界已经向前发展了。
Nespresso argues its coffee has never been better, but the truth is that Nespresso has never really been about the coffee.
雀巢声称他们的咖啡从来没有这么好过,但事实上,他们胶囊咖啡从来就不是真正的咖啡。
At Nestle headquarters in Vevey, there is a small museum dedicated to the history of Nespresso.
在位于韦威的雀巢总部,有一个专门展示雀巢咖啡机历史的小博物馆。
Looking at the early prototypes on display – elaborate Rube Goldberg-type machines with outsize tanks and pumps and tubes –
看看展出的早期原型——精心设计的带有超大的油箱、泵和管道的复杂机器,
it is easy to see why it took 10 years after the first patent was filed for the product to come to market.
很容易就能看出,为什么该产品在首次申请专利十年后才上市。
As a private company, Nestle was able to fund its pet project without justifying the cost to the stock market.
作为一家私营公司,雀巢能够在不说明股市成本合理的情况下为其钟爱的项目提供资金。
Within the company, though, there were doubters. Colleagues feared that if Favre’s invention succeeded
不过,公司内部也有人持怀疑态度。同事们担心如果法弗尔的发明成功了,
it would cannibalise the company’s existing coffee businesses, especially the flagship Nescafe instant brand.
它将侵蚀该公司现有的咖啡业务,尤其是旗舰品牌雀巢速溶咖啡。
At the time, Nestle saw itself as a mass market company that sold cheap, reliable products:
当时,雀巢视自己为一家大众市场公司,销售廉价可靠的产品:
chocolate and baby food and cereal. This was something different, whatever it was.
巧克力,婴儿食品和麦片。这是不同的东西,不管它是什么。