Café Imports is building relationships with female producer partners in Mexico in unique program
One of the reasons Café Imports is so successful in its mission to source some of the best coffees on the planet is the green-coffee company’s willingness to take risks. In 2011, Café Imports green buyer Piero Cristiani was in Mexico working with one of the company’s producer partner organizations, Capesinos Ecológicos de la Sierra Madre de Chiapas S.C. (ESMACH). Piero noticed the large number of female producers dropping coffee off for processing, and he had an idea. He proposed that the women keep their lots separate, and sell it for a premium. These independent women coffee producers ”many of whom are the head of their households ”could be empowered by the extra money to come from the exceptional coffees they’re developing.
Now in its fourth year, the CESMACH Women’s Producer program is enormously successful,m and Piero says the coffee just gets better all the time. Further, the work these women are doing is benefiting producers all over the Sierra Madre region in Mexico, giving it a more distinctive reputation.
The premium paid for the coffees is given directly to the program, and the women who make up CESMACH decide amongst themselves how it should be spent. The premium earned in 2014 went to building vegetable gardens, for example. According to CESMACH’s certifications and marketing director, Silvia Roblero, who is interviewed in this short video, future projects the women plan to use the premiums for include women’s health programs.
Members of the CESMACH organization are independent producers working on lots no larger than four hectares. Thirty-two communities are represented by the coffee, from the municipalities of Ãngel Albino Corzo, La Concordia, Montecristo de Guerro, and Siltepec. The CESMACH women produced two containers of coffee this year, which is currently on offer from Café Imports. Find out more information about it HERE.
