Sacacli El Limon Regenerative Organic Certified FW FTO ROC

SACACLI was founded by 31 associates, six women among them, on November 5, 1994, in Sacacli, San Rafael del Norte, Jinotega. Currently, the cooperative has 500 members. 

The cooperative began its operations in the coffee sector in 2008 with the help of 22 members in the municipality of Pantasma. By the 2017-2018 harvest, they had members and Fairtrade and Organic certified farms. 

SACACLi offers high-quality products under regulations that guarantee the protection of soil, environment, and communities. They are committed to continuous monitoring and always looking for improvement in the quality of their production chains under traceability systems with shared responsibilities between the producer, the organization, and their commercial clients.

Currently, the cooperative supports small and medium producers with services like savings, credit, supply, training, coffee marketing, and technical assistance.

In addition to coffee, Sacaclí also works with chili, tomato, and onion.

Sacaclí began its ROC certification process in 2020, starting with the sale of ROC-certified bananas, which opened the doors to certification for them. The certification process for their coffee took around 11 months, during which they faced challenges such as English language proficiency and not all their producers being Organic certified. However, they decided to proceed with the process, and out of their 85 associates, 41 who are Organic certified went through the auditing process to obtain the seal. 

In 2021, they obtained the ROC seal at the Bronze level, but they continued to seek ways to improve their practices through soil analysis, carbon footprint capture projects, and forest and bird inventories. After the 2022 audit, they reached the Silver level, with 51 associates already certified as Organic and 18 in the process.

They hope to see further progress in the 2023 audit results, and their goal is to reach the Gold level in the coming years. 

The coffee is harvested from the lots of certified producers, who have organic Fairtrade-ROC seals. The harvesting is carried out by skilled labor, often from the producer's own family. This ensures that the ripe coffee cherries are cut under optimal conditions for collection, as a good harvest preserves the quality of the product throughout the chain until its exportation. Important data is recorded in the producers' record notebooks, including the coffee crop's flowering periods, which indicate high and low percentages during the harvest months. It is important to consider that coffee, after flowering, requires 285 days to reach its optimal conditions for harvesting.

The coffee is processed in wet mills within the same farm, ensuring that each step follows the necessary measures to prevent contamination from external agents (such as fuel, agrochemicals, and lubricants).

If coffee from non-certified producers is processed in the wet mill, the following safety measures are taken:

• Coffee from non-certified sources is received at a different time than the certified coffee.
• All machinery is ensured to be clean.
• Depulping, fermentation, and washing are done at different times from the certified coffee process, as applicable.
• Conventional coffee processed is separated and kept in different areas from the certified coffee.
• Natural fermentation conditions are maintained for each associated producer, with ambient temperatures that do not harm the ecosystem.
• Fermentation tanks are made of concrete or wood.
• The time required for washing the coffee depends on the temperatures or climatic conditions of the product. It is also important to note that different varieties require different fermentation times.

Coffee that goes through the depulping machines without the addition of water undergoes a faster fermentation process compared to coffee with water, which can lead to differences of up to 8 hours.

Fermentation monitoring is conducted continuously to ensure that the parchment reaches the appropriate color and is ready to be delivered to the collection center.

Sustainable Harvest® is a specialty coffee trader focusing primarily on bringing coffees to market that are sourced from smallholder farmer cooperatives in the supply chain such as indigenous communities, women groups and the next generation of coffee farmers.

Their sourcing model is built on transparency, traceability and direct relationships between quality-minded coff­ee roasters and best-in-class coffee producers. Sustainable Harvest® has an on-site presence at origin with staff­ in Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Peru. Each office coordinates their supply including quality management, supplier relationships, source development, logistics, training and capacity building.