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Transcafé 08/03/02
Visit of their office in Guatemala City with Thomas M. Hoffman, director
Transcafe
is a second level organization and are the last step before the coffee is exported. They now count 40 years of experience in this field. They offer
services of quality control, advising, consulting and exporting. Also, they
organize seminars for the producer cooperatives they are working with. At the time we visited, they
charge a fee of 0.17$US per pound that also include insurance. This is very
important, especially when the value of coffee is high as this also
increases the risk during transportation. To keep the risk as low as
possible they have to send the coffee to port during the daytime with armed guards.
Once the coffee is exported, Transcafe receives the entire payment from the
client and then passes it, less their cost, to the cooperative, for example Manos
Campesinas. In Guatemala, it is very difficult to receive an export license, which is why many cooperatives have to contract the services of Transcafe.
The
cooperatives have to send a sample to Transcafe, which is cupped for quality control, before they can send their coffee to Transcafe's warehouse. The sample allows Transcafe to
determine if the level of humidity in the coffee is appropriate and also detect
any other defects like over fermentation. If the sample is rejected, they explain what was wrong and and give them suggestions on how it could be
corrected if possible.
Thomas told us that a problem they are trying to solve is the lack of good
labor for hand picking, which results in a lower quality. They have some projects for training and educating to increase their understanding
of the work chain of which they are part, and how their work have an impact on the overall quality of the coffee.
