About This Coffee
FECCEG (Federacion Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala) is a second-tier cooperative composed of 12 base cooperatives operating in 6 departments across Guatemala. Founded in 2006 to find sustainable economic activities to improve members’ livelihoods. They began exporting independently in 2009.
The 12 base cooperatives represent more than 1,000 smallholder producers—a third of whom are women—who farm a mixture of coffee, honey and sugar.
FECCEG members are Fairtrade and Organic certified. With those social premiums, FECCEG has been able to finance many social projects in local communities. These have included improving and expanding schools, establishing a revolving loan fund for women, building school gardens and starting animal husbandry projects. Hundreds of families have been able to benefit from their projects, including community members who are not themselves members of FECCEG.
Cultivation
With their focus on organic production, FECCEG promotes using natural resources sustainability. Their team of three agricultural technicians work with producers to produce organic fertilizers from coffee byproducts.
FECCEG has also helped establish 25 micro-biofertilizer plants in rural communities. The biofertilizer plants have resulted in higher yields and improved soils across many farming communities.
The biofertilizer plants are operated by the children of producer members, helping them gain skills and income and expands their opportunities for careers in farming and coffee.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Due to their remoteness, most producers process their own coffee. Luckily, an abundance of streams and rivers makes Fully washed coffees easier to do.
Farmers selectively handpick cherry and pulp it on their farms, usually with a small hand-powered or electric drum pulper. After fermenting, parchment is agitated to remove remaining mucilage and washed with clean water. All water used during pulping and washing will be filtered – usually through naturally-filtering soil – so that the organic solids do not contaminate local waterways.
Farmers typically lay parchment to dry on raised beds that are stacked on top of each other to maximize space. Patios are also frequently used.
Coffee in Guatemala
Guatemala boasts a variety of growing regions and conditions that produce spectacular coffees. Today, the country is revered as a producer of some of the most flavorful and nuanced cups worldwide. We are proud to work with several exceptional in-country partners to bring these coffees to market.
The Guatemalan coffee industry experienced a major setback with the 2010 appearance of Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) in Latin America. The epidemic peaked in severity in 2012, and though CLR continues to affect some farms, Guatemala continues to produce high-quality, record-breaking coffees. In 2017, new and varied processing methods pushed prices at the Guatemalan Cup of Excellence contest to record highs.
The quality of coffee being produced in Guatemala is increasing, overall, due to the diversity of the industry’s producers. There are more and more small holder farmers producing exceptional coffee at high altitudes. Cooperatives are becoming more appealing to so many smallholders because they often offer farmers financing and other support for improving their farming and processing and are frequently able to offer higher prices for cherry than middlemen. Many cooperatives have initiated quality improvement training for farmer members and are becoming more adept at helping members market their coffee as specialty.