The founders

About us

Our story

How it all began

CAFÉTÉ began three years ago in a claro shop, where Kareem — a passionate hospitality professional of some twenty years and one of the two founders — spotted a large glass jar full of dried, reddish fruit. He couldn’t say what it was. When he asked, he learned: it’s part of the coffee plant. His curiosity was sparked — and since hardly anyone asked about it back then, he was given a handful to try.

At home he brewed his first infusion from it: fruity, slightly tart and surprisingly distinct. The more Kareem learned about the coffee fruit, the clearer it became that there was far more to it.

Three years later, a handful of coffee fruit became CAFÉTÉ.

The founders

The founders behind Cafété

Kareem Oueini

Product & brand development

Kareem Oueini is a trained chef and food craftsman by passion. He has worked in hospitality for some two decades, developing a fine instinct for taste, balance and quality. He brings that experience to CAFÉTÉ — especially in recipe development, where the interplay of aromas, sweetness, acidity and structure is decisive. A nature-loving and sporty person, he has also long been interested in nutrition, hydration and the quality of what we put into our bodies.

Hannes-Valentin Juon

Commercial & operations

Through his qualification as a Technical Business Specialist (Technischer Kaufmann FA), Hannes-Valentin Juon has a solid grounding in business and a practical feel for numbers and commercial context. At CAFÉTÉ he handles the commercial side: financial planning, pricing and — together with Kareem — the company’s overall direction. He is also interested in digitalisation and operations, and wants to build CAFÉTÉ step by step into a stable, locally rooted company.

The vision

A category of its own

CAFÉTÉ wants to establish the coffee fruit as a category of its own in Switzerland — not a niche product for connoisseurs, but a fixture on the shelf. We believe the coffee fruit deserves more attention. With CAFÉTÉ, we make a raw material rich in tradition experienceable in a new way.