Coffee producers and Covid-19

We hear a lot about how Covid-19 has affected the hospitality and retail industry, while we don’t have much information about how the pandemic has affected our coffee producers. 

Here at Terrone & Co. we decided to investigate this phenomenon by talking to one of our old-time suppliers and friends: DBarbosa from High Cerrado, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world producing over 2.2 million tons of coffee a year.

When we talk about specialty coffee, it’s easier to think about African countries like Ethiopia, but the truth is that in the last 10 years there has been a shift of Brazilian coffee producers from commercial towards specialty grade coffees and the market is growing.

Barbosa Family, 2020

The Barbosa family has a long tradition of coffee farming and they now export their coffee in over 7 countries including the UK, USA and South Korea. They put a lot of attention on quality in every step of the process and they focus on innovation by keeping improving the production process and management.

We spoke with Deyvid, who at DBarbosa supervises the whole process from production to sample roasting, from sales to post-sale communication.

In terms of sales, the pandemic has drastically affected their trade. For the UK market, during the lockdown, sales have dropped by over 80%. They were able to cope with the whole situation by focusing more on the internal Brazilian market, where the demand for coffee has increased rapidly over the past years.

In terms of production, despite some logistics difficulties caused by the Covid-19, this was probably the most successful year thanks to the very favourable weather conditions. This resulted in a big selection of large beans of perfect quality, all pretty consistent with one another.

Looking at the future of his business, Dayvid is a bit concerned about the threat of a third wave of the pandemic that could harm his sales even more. However, he keeps a long term perspective, confident that when this is over they will be able to push their specialty coffee beans even more, expanding towards Asian markets. 

We at Terrone just ordered the 2020 crop of Cachoeira and we can’t wait to taste it!

*SOURCE: BBC Reels - “ coffee has kept us going in 2020”