Talking Traceability, Cerrado’s Geographic Location Protection

Cerrado’s “Designation of Origin” is the pionner on large scale traceability solution

Traceability has been a long challenge fought by the coffee industry as it’s rewards are enormous, because it strongly drives and facilitates communication, transparency and accountability within the supply chain, insuring that production and trade have higher quality and better social and environmental standards. Farmers committed to traceability, knows that their work, names and coffees are at stake as they will be seen by roasters and final clients, for that reasons they engage themselves harder to show what and how they can produce as it’s best. On the other hand, Roasters and final consumers, can appreciate and exchange their opinion about the coffees, which brings to the growers a range of information to improve their production and have a competitive edge over non-traceable farmers.

Platforms for traceability still lack in consistence in the coffee industry, as most of traceable coffees, are most often micro-lotes and done on a small scale, but there is a specific project that for several years have pioneering on the sector.

With the moto “Coffee Produced with Attitude, Ethical, Traceable, and with High Quality” the Cerrado Growers Federations has been the first in the world to receive Protection for their Geographic Location or a “Designation of Origin” for the coffees grown on their region. This certification follows the same standards for other gastronomy goods such as the well known wines from Chianti in Italy or the French cheeses Camembert de Normandie.

The Federation’s main objective is of “To make the Cerrado Mineiro a reference for great changes to a new world for Coffee, for regions, producers, products, and developing connections transforming the coffee drinking culture. It sounds ambitious, and it has been indeed delivered on it’s commitment as you will read later on the article.

According to the Federation the region comprehends 55 cities, 234 thousands hectares of production area, managed by 4500 Growers, with an average of 6 million bags produced per year, that is about 25% of production of Minas Gerais, and 13% of Brazilian production.

The Coffees from Cerrado are internationaly know by it’s unique characteristics of intense aroma and sweet flavors of chocolate, caramel and nuts, citric acidity a deep body, and long finish, and for that reason earned the status of exclusive from “INPI” (National Institute of Industrial Property).

Cerrado’s flat topography is characteristic for this unique terroir.

This privileged profile, comes from many reasons, firstly Cerrado’s terroir present stable weather conditions with hot and humid summers, much needed for the development of the plants and fruits, and mild dry winters, facilitating the harvest by avoiding undesired fermentation. For that reason natural process is the most used, but in search for new profiles and higher quality, processes as washed, semi-washed and controlled fermentation have been incrementally implemented.

The topography of the region is mostly flat, which facilitates the use of mechanical harvesting, as for the soil and vegetation it’s similar for African Savanas. It’s fortunate that it does not retain too much water, on the other hand it is low on organic matter and nutrients, which is constantly an attention for agronomists and growers to improve. Altitude ranges from 800 – 1300 s.m.l, a micro-region named Chapadao de Ferro, where farms are located at a dormant volcano, with altitudes ranging 1100 s.m.l. deserves special attention.

Natural Processing at Fazenda Vitoria in Monte Carmelo.

Growers from Cerrado have looked for new processes to differentiate their coffees, on this photo we see a semi-washed process combined with Controlled Fermentation at Fazenda Londrina.

Alongside of it’s soil, topography and weather; People, the human and cultural elements, are much more of a significant factor to Cerrado’s distinct Terroir. Coffee Production in the region started in the early 1970’s, quite late compared to other Brazilian Regions. The soil was considered poor, and the land was used mostly for cattle culture. During those years, coffee production in Brazil was still greatly concentrated in Sao Paulo and Parana, but after a sequence of years where the plantations went through harsh frosts, the most notable in 1975 (The Dark Frost), which destroyed completely the plantations in Londrina Parana; it happened an “exodus” of growers to the Cerrado Region; who were looking for stable weather conditions. After a couple of years, the production brought goods results, which called the attention of producers located in Sao Paulo and other regions of Minas Gerais, who promptly moved their production to Cerrado.

The challenges faced by those producers in their early generations, have worked to their best, since they have developed a culture of creativity in order to find complex solutions to keep improving their crops. The need to “restart” from a troubled setting, in a completely different location and for many with a hard financial situation, is the main reason what made those growers to understand the importance of connection and associations, which throughout the years built up for the such powerful coordination that they can now as a whole enjoy a Geographic Location Status.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The Cerrado Growers Federation have created a set of guidelines to ensure that the region Cerrado has its integrate quality guaranteed with stamp DO.

Firstly and foremost the coffees must grow on official demarcated area which represents well the Terroir of Cerrado: The designated area is in the map below:

Other requirements:

• Minimum altitude of 800 meters, reaching up to 1,300 meters;
• Coffea arabica is the official specie;
• Minimum quality of 80pts based on SCAA* methodology;
• The use of good practices and respect to Brazilian Environmental, Social, and Employment laws;
• Coffee lots must be warehoused only in the accredited cooperatives;
• Only the official coffee bag, identified with the Guaranteed Origin and Quality Seal., must be used.

Enjoying the Benefits of Traceability:

The Coffees comes in the official bags from the “Cerrado Coffee Growers Federation”, that contains a bar code label, which once scanned provides very detailed information as about the Growers history and production philosophy, farm details as altitude, average temperature, precise location with the usage of satellite maps.

As for the coffees themselves, information of the Variety, Processing, Average Altitude, Harvest Season, and the Warehouse where it was prepared for shipment, and the first warehouse of arrival at destination.

Additionally is provided a Certificate containing all information about the physical characteristics and cupping profile which is signed by a certified QGrader.

Roasters can also find a roasting profile, recommended by the Federation, to take the best of what the coffee can deliver.

More importantly this information can easily passed through the supply chain. The bar code be used for Roasters on their own packing, or Cafeterias can use on their cafes, etc…

Conclusion:

This project which have increasingly developing year by year, is practicable way to separate the coffees from Cerrado from the concept of commodity, moreover producers have higher chances to receive a fair price for their production. As said by Marcos Alves, a regional manager for Sebrae, a non-profit governmental agency in cooperation with the Cerrado Growers Federation: “Coffee growers, and in general all agricultural entrepreneurs rarely have the possibility to choose the prices for their products, the value is mostly determined by the market in a simply logic of Supply and Demand. The DO certification with all the quality enhancement and transparency that it brings to the coffees serves as a platform for liberation of Growers from this system, and furthermore towards fair coffee industry.

Cafemporio is a partner of the Cerrado Growers Federation, and since April 2020, all the coffees coming from the region will have the DO certificate. We believe that it’s time to lead the way towards creating better platforms of connection between Growers and Roasters no matter if they are large or small. This connection will moreover create a synergy of exchange of ideas that will automatically improve not only the quality of coffees, but also make the industry, more fair, sustainable, with the experience of drinking coffees going beyond aromas and flavors.