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Organic specialty coffee from EarthFood. This is the honest story of the coffee farmers from Peru

Text by Rik Booltink
Photography by This Side Up, FuturumShop

Specialty coffee. It may seem like a hollow, marketable term at first glance, but nothing could be further from the truth. Not every type of coffee can call itself specialty. Specialty coffee is of the highest quality and has a unique flavor and fair origin.

Good Grades

To separate the wheat from the chaff, the globally recognized Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has established standards based on aspects such as flavor profile and aroma. Trained experts scrutinize the coffees and assign scores. Only with a score of eighty points or more, on a scale up to one hundred, can the specialty coffee designation be placed on the packaging.
Launched at the end of last year, EarthFood is among the elite group of providers with quality products. This sets its coffee beans apart from the average bags of beans you can buy in the supermarket, says Maarten van Keulen.

Fully Transparent

He is one of the people behind This Side Up, the Dutch coffee importer that mediates for EarthFood to offer organically certified coffee. The most important characteristic of This Side Up is that all this happens in the most transparent manner possible. Whether it concerns the names and contact details of farmers, purchase contracts, volumes, or salaries; everything is openly available on the social enterprise's website.
"Every company, of course, claims to be committed to people and the environment. But how far do coffee traders really go in that regard? The only way to substantiate that you truly do things differently, sustainably, and pay fairly is by being fully transparent. If you say you're doing good but dare not show it, you probably aren't doing so well after all."

Mutual Trust

The transparency and direct collaboration indirectly boost the quality of EarthFood and some other specialty coffees. By appreciating farmers in the right way and supporting them in various areas, they are able to invest money and run their businesses more effectively. This raises the bar continuously. "If you treat farmers as equal entrepreneurs, pay them well, and train them on how to produce coffee, you'll naturally get better coffee at the end of the process that's worth more. Without each other, neither party would get anywhere."
The explanation may sound simple; the practice is often much tougher. This Side Up initially has to work hard to convince farmers. "The farmer thinks: here's another white person making beautiful promises. On the other hand, we can also be tricked because we don't know how things work on location. Initially, we are somewhat cautious and probing towards each other, like: we find each other interesting, but how do we move forward together? It's about building mutual trust," says Van Keulen.

Upward Cycle

Once convinced, things progress quickly. This Side Up connects supply and demand and creates relatively short chains, while regular coffee trade goes through anonymous auctions that yield less for farmers. Farmers have no idea where their product ends up, and consumers don't know where their product comes from. A lot of manipulation and money-making happens in the gray area in between.
This Side Up shows farmers who the buyers are and what they need. "The Dutch market is willing to pay more if the product meets expectations and tastes better. The farmer must show us potential. If you have a certain coffee quality and there are some flaws, we explain how to fix them. How do you pick ripe cherries? How do you process coffee so that mold doesn't grow? If the base product is okay and there's the will and motivation to take it to the next level, you enter an upward cycle together."

Control

This Side Up imports coffee from fourteen countries and operates everywhere according to a fixed pattern. Their own teams maintain contact about production and market expectations. And with local agronomists, the quality of the work on the farm is gradually improved. "There may be a certain taste deviation. Then we know: it could be mold, a result of poor drying. We start a conversation and analyze the drying process. For example, you might hear that it unexpectedly rained. The next step is: what can we do about it? Sometimes we invest in drying domes, dome tents. It’s not even about agronomy, but about the post-harvest process. By gaining control over that as well, we improve the yields."

Organic Arabica

For EarthFood's coffee, This Side Up travels to farmers and cooperatives in Congo, Ethiopia, and Peru. They supply, at EarthFood's request, only organically certified beans. "Some farmers are naturally organic but don't pay for the certification. Then you can't label your product organic in Europe. For EarthFood, which is itself organically certified, this is relevant."
EarthFood has specifically chosen arabica coffee. "That's called the rose of tropical products, it's a very difficult crop that you have to handle with precision," explains Van Keulen. "There is an area around the equator where coffee can grow, where it's warm enough. But for arabica, it must not be too hot, so you're limited to certain altitudes of about a thousand meters and higher. But you also have to be careful because arabica coffee can't tolerate frost. Arabica, originally a jungle crop, does well in polyculture. So we encourage farmers to grow other crops as well instead of just one."

New Insights

One of EarthFood's arabica coffees is Churupampa, named after Finca Churupampa, the cooperative and exporter that supplies the coffee. The product comes from a region in Peru, northeast of Lima, and stands out for its spicy flavor with notes of nuts and chocolate. Since 2017, the progressive cooperative of the Tocto family has been working closely with This Side Up.
Co-owner Eber Tocto entered the coffee industry about twenty years ago. He had just finished his agricultural engineering studies and settled in Chirinos, the paradise of Peruvian coffee cultivation in the north of the country. "I was lucky that my father, a hard-working farmer, had set aside some money for my private studies and those of my brothers. In Chirinos, I came into contact with expats. They had been in Colombia and talked about research on coffee and productivity. That gave me interesting insights."

Directly to America

His father ran the farming business, where coffee had only a small share, in an old-fashioned, outdated way. "I tried to convince him of the knowledge I had gained. Whereas he previously only harvested ten coffee bags per hectare, this soon changed to fifty to sixty bags. Certainly five times more. With ten hectares of coffee area, we suddenly had a multiple of coffee. Soon my father was preaching the new way of growing coffee."
With the confirmation that it was possible to harvest more coffee on the same surface area, he approached potential customers directly. "The first customer was in the United States; they took forty bags at a much better price than we were used to through the normal market. Both the quantity and quality proved to be better. That was another step in the right direction."

Showroom

Business was going well, but Tocto encountered another problem: buyers were demanding ever larger quantities of his quality coffee. "They wanted containers. I thought: what should I do now? I decided to use our farm as a kind of showroom and thus convinced fellow farmers in the area to adopt the new techniques. My cousin Lenin, who had a commercial function elsewhere and is now the manager of our company, helped to persuade others."

Mindset

Now they are at the helm of a solid cooperative of about four hundred Peruvian farmers who together grow coffee sustainably and receive support from This Side Up. "In the last five to ten years, the mindset among farmers has changed significantly. They now see that focusing on quality gets you much further. Coffee has become more of a main activity. Previously, coffee was more of a byproduct alongside growing bananas and beans and small livestock farming. Now we visit farms with our team to give advice. For example, we say: harvest in this period or plant the coffee plants at a certain distance from each other."

Through the Jungle

The team consists of five agronomists and a final responsible person and crisscrosses the jungle to visit farms that sometimes have existed for decades. The team also guides starting entrepreneurs.
"With our knowledge, we help to build coffee plantations from scratch. We look at the local situation and evaluate the soil. This leads to an approach with specific seeds for that area and a growth plan. It does require patience, because only after four or five years is there a first harvest. At that moment, the farmer with excellent coffee quality and above-average yield receives confirmation that he has been turning the right knobs."

Close to Nature

Tocto is enthusiastic about what his family has achieved. "I have the most enjoyable job I can imagine. Quality of life is very important to me; thanks to coffee, I am outside every day and very close to nature. I roam through the jungle and see the coffee grow every day. Coffee is part of our culture and a product that also appeals to people worldwide. How beautiful is it that you can contribute to making the cup of coffee extra flavorful? We meet a strong need with this and do so in a better, sustainable way."

Own Flavor

It makes Tocto proud when he gets the final product from his buyers in his hands. "If we had sold the coffee beans through the stock exchange, we would have had no idea where they ended up. Now a bond is created with our customers. Sometimes customers even come to us to see with their own eyes how things are going with us. They also bring their coffee, which we are happy to taste. Although we supply the raw beans and thus provide the foundation of the final product, Bosbrand, the roastery that roasts the coffee for EarthFood, adds a clear touch with its approach. It is special that EarthFood and others like it manage to give our coffee a completely unique twist in terms of flavor."