Sourcing Details:
Good supply chains deliver tasty coffee that ROCks. This is certainly the case with coffees arriving courtesy of the Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG), an umbrella organization that helps smaller cooperatives gain access to the international market. This particular lot comes from producers cultivating coffee on small parcels in the Mam community called Santo Domingo in the municipality of La Libertad within the department of Huhuetenango. FECCEG has also helped farmers with training on best organic practices and the production of organic compost and biofertilizers. The foundation of these practices has helped farmers earn a new certification called Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC), which is focused on ensuring soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness.
Processing Details:
This producer group is organized in a cooperative called Cooperativa Integral de Ahorro y Crédito Café Responsabilidad Limitada (COPECAFE R.L.), which operates a centralized wet mill. Producer carefully harvests coffee from their farm with focus on picking only fully ripened cherries, which are delivered to a centralized mill that has been designed to preserve the quality and consistency of the coffee coming from many small farms. At the mill, the cherries are washed and sorted with a siphon to remove damaged and less dense coffee. The selected cherries are then depulped, fermented and washed. Washed coffee in parchment is gently dried with a mechanical dryer called a guardiola and then stored until it is time to prepare the coffee for export.
Exporting Details:
At this stage, FECCEG steps in to support producers with transportation, warehousing and cupping analysis, and later provides the preparation for export. FECCEG has worked hard to ensure coffee traceability so that producers receive more income for improved quality. Increased earnings from coffee sales help strengthen a producer family’s livelihood.
