SWEET AND FRUITY

Caranavi - Agricafe co-op / 1550 masl. / Caturra, Catuai & Typica / Anaerobic Natural / SCA - 86.50p

Manco Capac is a group of producers who harvest their cherries and deliver them for processing to the Buena Vista Mill in the Agricafe Cooperative. The producer's farms are located over 1550 masl, run on 8 to 12 hectares planted with coffee trees of 4 varieties: Caturra, Catuai and Typica. On the rest of the farm, they produce fruits and grow chickens, keeping a lot of the land as wild forest.

The cherries have been processed at the mill with an anaerobic dry fermentation method as soon as 22 hours after pulping the cherries. The parchment was then dried on raised beds for a few days and in mechanical dryers until it reached 12% moisture content.

The mill is owned by the Rodriguez family who started this business in 1986. They now have 8 farms in the Caranavi region (60 ha) and 5 farms in the Samaipata region (60 ha), with up to 300 people working for the company during the peak season. They also hire agronomists from different countries as consultants every year. They bet on a great vertical integration system to shorten the supply chain and make it more transparent and cost-efficient. In 2019, they won the SCA Sustainability Award in the category ‘Best Sustainable Business Model’.