After completing a successful 2020 harvest, 2021 still presents a challenge, but also an opportunity to put into practice all the learnings and improvement opportunities found in the previous harvest.

During 2020 we learned how to navigate through rough waters in Peru. The harvest was starting in the middle of a pandemic and there were many challenges. But thanks to the strong bonds that we have built over the years with our coffee producing partners and cooperatives, plus a wonderful team effort, in the end it was a great harvest, with great coffee sourced and many lessons learned. A year after, we are better prepared to sort these battles and ready to focus on quality and productivity.

In January 2021, as we finished shipping all the 2020 harvest out from Peru to our import offices all over the world, we started to gather and analyze all the data from our information system about cuppings, purchases, and rejections. This involved a deep analysis with our QC and PECA team on the good and bad of the harvest. Starting in February, we decided to take advantage of the main findings of this analysis and carry out several workshops with PECA and QC to educate our farmer partners in different topics such as physical quality, cup quality, post-harvest practices, how to preserve the quality of the parchment before delivering to buying stations, etc.

First, we segmented all the producers by groups according to their needs, their strengths, and weaknesses, and organized them according to their priority level. Secondly, our PECA and Quality teams in both regions where we have direct presence, Cajamarca, and Cusco, created personalized and targeted educational content for producers to focus on their improvement opportunities.

Lastly, we set up task forces, selecting the most suitable members of our team based on the producer’s specific needs and cultural closeness to them. For instance, selecting our team members in Cusco that speak Quechua which is the common language in the region and necessary if looking to share technical knowledge with coffee growers. This with the aim of ensuring that were effectively communicating our message and knowledge in these workshops.

During the workshops, we covered general content such as: Caravela’s history and principles, our buying parameters and best post-harvest practices: pulper calibration, fermentation, drying and storing.

Workshops in Cajamarca