Colombia Specialty Growers Go Direct-to-Consumer

By Bethany Haye

As the pricing crisis ravages the sector in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America, specialty growers in the Antioquia department of Colombia are taking action to get their specialty coffee directly to consumers and command a fair price for their product.

Located in the northwest with Andean volcanic soil and a stable climate, Antioquia has a high concentration of both large and small plantations. It produces the highest volume of coffee of any region in Colombia but is, nevertheless, a relative latecomer to high-end specialty coffee production. With many farms less than an hour outside Medellin, the department’s capital and Colombia’s second city (also a newly discovered tourist destination), many growers have decided to open cafés that double as retail outlets and commute from farm to town to operate them.

One such farmer is Arlex Cano Colorado, who owns Arcasa Café and the farm and company of the same name. He explained why he and fellow specialty producers decided to be more proactive by processing, roasting, and packaging their coffee, opening coffee shops, and selling direct to hotels, universities, and corporate cafeterias throughout the country.

“We single-farm growers don’t really benefit from the help afforded to growers in general,” he says, adding that support for coffee producers usually comes in a form that involves combining harvests from multiple farms in order to roast and export economically.

He and his fellow specialty growers would love to each have their own roasting oven, a formidable expense starting at US$20,000 for a 12kg capacity that few, if any, can afford. So, they use a trusted local company, Cafeza Roaster, located just a few hundred meters from the café. “They clean the machines meticulously after each batch, so the flavor is not compromised, and we maintain complete traceability.”

A block away, Café La Prezensa is a relaxed shop frequented by locals and digital nomads. Owner-grower Juan Montoya says the shop is not really there to make money; it’s more of a sales point, office, and showcase for his single-origin Excelso, grown at Santa Cruz farm in Valparaiso Antioquia.

These grower-owner-retailers joined other small growers in 2014 to launch a bi-annual magazine, Pausa Para un Café, the only magazine in the country entirely dedicated to coffee. The magazine is edited, published, and written by growers and their family members. Editor Carlos Salazar Caicedo noted, “We know that the world of specialty coffee producers must be interconnected and proactive in order to have an impact and allow future generations to prosper.”

And the city has taken notice. The Medellin mayor’s office announced on Tuesday, March 17 a program to promote the city’s growing café culture, singling out the area where about 25 of these family-owned outlets are located, the trendy neighborhood of Laureles, as its Coffee Zone. The Medellin department of tourism and productivity will sponsor events and do outdoor advertising in an effort to boost local consumption in cafés.

In the upmarket area of Poblado, specialty coffee shops have been a fixture for years, as travelers and expats, as well as affluent locals, have proven they are willing to pay the price for “export-quality” coffee. Among those are Café La Riqueza, which does roast its own coffee and markets its single-origin coffees, grown on the Finca La Riqueza in southwest Antioquia, by online subscription online, roasted to order.

Almost all of the shops offer coffee-preparation workshops and barista training courses on site as part of the push to educate consumers and develop coffee culture in the biggest producer of specialty coffees in the world.

“The more internal consumption grows, the more our domestic economy grows,” says Colorado. “It’s really a very simple concept.”