Coffee was established in Peru in the mid-18th century but wasn’t available for commercial export until the late 19th century following the default of a loan repayment to the British Government which saw over 2 million hectares of land transferred to Britain as a repayment. 

The industry has developed to favour large scale commercial production meaning a lot of the great quality coffee on offer can be swallowed up with small scale producers being left marginalised and isolated from cooperative groups. It is these producers who are at the mercy of local buyers (sometimes known as coyotes) who utilise their strengthened position to take coffee from the producers at a much lower price than it is worth before selling on to an exporter. Not only does this mean the income potential from coffee is very low for the producer, the quality potential of the crop can be lost with careless handling.

The District of Huabal in particular has a huge amount of potential for quality coffee but poor infrastructure has left many of the region’s producers lacking in the resources and knowledge needed to unlock that potential. This, tied with a historical dependence on commercial production and an increased sensitivity to market changes within farming communities, means there has been little incentive to produce higher quality coffee as premiums often never materialise.

For this reason, since 2015 we have purchased our Peru coffees through the Falcon Blueprint program which has focused on post-harvest support to improve quality. In 2018, the team opened a small warehouse in the town of Jaen in Cajamarca in the North - the space houses a quality control lab for farmers to bring their dry parchment coffee to for analysis and feedback. They will receive an offer price immediately based on the cup quality which they are able to accept or refuse and, on average, these prices have consistently been double the market rate.