The Café de Mujeres Brisas brand is the culmination of an entrepreneurial exploration led by PROEXO, a social economy enterprise. Over 245 women smallholders received support from PROEXO and other organizations to establish the exclusive women’s coffee brand for the collective.
The creation of Café de Mujeres Brisas took shape after PROEXO took part in an exchange programme that brought together Honduran women working in coffee with their counterparts in Colombia. The exchange was organized by Solidaridad with support from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Honduran Coffee Institute (IHCAFE).
In Colombia, the Honduran women met with the members of AMUCC, a women’s smallholder coffee association, and the organization TECNICAFE. During their trip, the Hondurans visited various coffee farms and processing facilities where they attended cupping sessions, and observed different methods of coffee selection, mechanization of processing, pulping, and drying and storage methods.
Additionally, the women from Honduras and Colombia shared their experiences on organizational models, new innovations in the coffee sector, and the financial considerations that go into a coffee business, such as the use of revolving funds, effective negotiation and sustainable growth.
According to staff members from PROEXO, “The importance of these exchanges lies in the opportunity to learn directly from AMUCC’s experience, history, challenges, achievements, and hear about the perspectives that shed light on the actions that can be implemented in our organizations.”
Seeing women’s leadership makes an idea a reality
The exchange allowed attendees to observe and learn. The smallholders of AMUCC first started working with bulk coffee collection from women members, and then teamed up with a technical ally to learn about certifications, how to manage their own resources, and learn good farming practices to improve their processes and quality control.
Inspired by what they observed in Colombia, the PROEXO team applied the newfound concepts in Honduras. During a workshop entitled Women’s Business Empowerment Day, a group of women from PROEXO shared topics such as empowerment, certification under a women-produced mark, digital traceability and blockchain technology. To conclude the workshop, the women farmers in attendance created their own women’s coffee brand, Café de Mujeres Brisas.
The women worked together to find creative packaging solutions that would allow the brand to stand out, including explorations of different packaging and labels using the packaging of AMUCC’s coffee as a reference. One thing all the smallholders agreed on was that they wanted their information to appear on the packaging, but they also wanted to share even more in the form of a QR code. After the workshop participants their ideas for the packaging were shared with a designer at GIZ who created packaging that incorporates all the elements they wanted.
Partnerships contribute to achieving objectives
As a followup, GIZ supported the Honduran smallholders with a market study for the workshopped brand. After combing through the findings and taking on suggestions from the study, the Café de Mujeres Brisas brand was launched in October of 2023.
“We [PROEXO] launched the brand with them because, for us, they the smallholders are the protagonists. The brand for us is a women’s empowerment platform that is created with the vision to be a support for women smallholders, and in this way, they can find allies to create their own company in the future perhaps,” said Scarlette Zerón, one of the team members of PROEXO who aided the process.
Now, PROEXO is seeking funding to continue the work with partners and promote entrepreneurship within PROEXO via a revolving fund model similar to the one they saw in Colombia.
“A contract was already signed with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to provide them with coffee for a year, and that is a great achievement for us. Our next step is to establish sales points in supermarkets and donor partners. In addition, we seek to obtain a competitive resale price, which will give the smallholders extra income from the sale of their coffee,” says Scarlette.
One more step for Honduran coffee
According to the team at PROEXO, one of the best strategies for a Honduran coffee grower is to organize as a group of coffee smallholders to share objectives, values, and life philosophy in an effort to support each other personally and in business development and coffee production.
Being part of an association often provides greater opportunities for training, field advisories, access to revolving funds and micro-financing, which can lead to an increase in entrepreneurship. Organized smallholders may find it easier to access fairer markets that value inclusion. A group can also more easily find specialized markets that make added-value payments to smallholders who follow good practices and produce high quality coffee.
The new Café de Mujeres Brisas brand has managed to position itself as a social project that supports women in the coffee value chain. It uses digital technology to provide final consumers and commercial partners with a traceable product and a unique origin story that are designed to establish stable and long-term relationships. The new coffee brand promises to become a platform that brings growth and increased incomes to women, their families, and their communities.
The launch of the Café de Mujeres Brisas coffee brand became possible thanks to the collaboration of Solidaridad, INATrace from GIZ, Rainforest Alliance, and the Coffee Chain project of Heifer International. These organizations support women smallholders, and aim to increase incomes, while encouraging traceability and improving coffee sustainability.