SANTOS COFFEE
Zona de Minas Gerais, brings together about 4,000 families. Coocafé Cooperative (Cooperative of Coffee Region Lajinha) was founded in 1979 in the city of Lajinha (Minas Gerais) to strengthen coffee farmers in the region, allowing better results in their income and lifestyle. Facing great difficulties, the Cooperative has won enough consolidation and recognition as socially and environmentally sustainable.
To increase self-sufficiency for its members, the section created a credit union to its members following the results of the coffee sales within the Fair Trade-CREDICAF SICOOB society since 1988 and serves its members. Reinvestment finally reached the region in a spiral of remarkable social and economic advancement. That same year, 1988 they started the Cooperative Society for Educational and Cultural Development in the Region of Lajinha Ltd. (COOPCEL) - formed by parents and teachers aimed at generating a quality education for young people and encouraging them to develop a culture of cooperation and development of cultural values and environmental solidarity to a sustainable economy in the area.
Coocafé now is a structured organization, with nearly 200 employees in the different areas mentioned and serving its 4000 members of which 95% are small producers in the form of small family unit or base or primary cooperatives and maintaining their primary income of coffee cultivation. Partners of Coocafé receive technical assistance, purchase security contributions of coffee and other agricultural inputs over more than 20 locations where the project is developed, which produce more than 1 million bags per year.
Products: Coffee