Driving the vision of producers to grow as coffee entrepreneurs

As part of our efforts to cultivate opportunities for small-scale coffee producers, we respond to their needs and aspirations by offering trainings, scholarships, and microloans to the members of our eight partner cooperatives.

Trainings

In 2022, we partnered with INTECAP (Vocational Training Institute) to implement a series of tourism and hospitality trainings with our partner cooperative, the Coffee Growers of San Miguel Escobar, with whom we carry out our Community Tourism Program. Because the producers themselves facilitate the tours and classes offered to visitors, it’s important that they feel confident and prepared to guide those experiences. The INTECAP training series included presentations, workshops, group discussions, and simulations allowing producers to more wholly understand the perspectives of tourists and be better equipped to lead mutually beneficial immersive experiences.

Scholarships

In efforts to nourish the entrepreneurial spirits of coffee producers and their goals to grow within the industry, we provided barista training scholarships to Rudy and Estela, members of our partner cooperative, La Familia Collective.

As we seek to include more women producers, we were honored to name Estela as a scholarship recipient, who is undoubtedly an example of the potential that women have as coffee professionals. She is not only a woman producer, but also the legal representative of La Familia Collective and barista in-training, proving that she can cultivate coffee, perform the art of preparing it, and negotiate the contracts the cooperative makes with green

Many people criticize us women for being in the male-dominated coffee industry … It’s not normal to see a woman in a barista contest, or a woman who cultivates, processes, and can even prepare your coffee. We’re always encountering sexism, but I’ve adopted the mentality to show them what I can do. With time, people will change their mentality.

Estela Gonzalez, La Familia Collective

Microloans

Individual Loans

The Young Entrepreneur Fund was used in 2022 to provide 0% interest loans to 5 members of our partner cooperative, the Young Entrepreneurs of San Miguel Escobar. Loan recipients, all of whom are second generation coffee growers, used their loans towards projects and costs such as fertilizer, purchasing additional land, and covering production costs.

Receiving the loan was incredibly positive for me… A lot of us have the initiative and will to work in this industry, but we don’t have the capital to really drive that work… [this loan] has helped me tremendously.

Estuardo Acajabón, Young Entrepreneurs of San Miguel Escobar

Beyond providing loans to individuals, we also offer cooperatives the opportunity to collectively apply for interest-free loans. In 2022, we dedicated funds to provide a loan to Ija’tz Cooperative. Their structure is distinct from the majority of our partner cooperatives in that, during the harvest, members deliver ripened cherries to the cooperative's wet mill and processing facilities, where they are paid upfront. In order to facilitate these payments to its members, we provided Ija’tz Cooperative with a loan prior to the harvest which was paid back in full by the close of 2022 upon receiving compensation when exporting green coffee.

In addition, we provided an interest-free loan to the Coffee Growers of San Miguel Escobar to cover overhead operational costs during the harvest in order to scale their green coffee exporting capacity.