The Foxhole

Hello friends, coming to you with our final quarterly origin and shipment update of the year as we enter the home stretch of 2021. This report will cover some broad strokes and some details in all the origins in which we work, whether their coffee is on the water, heading to the mill, in harvest, or still looking towards its next flowering.

In this episode we are joined by special guest Casimiro García López and his son Omar of Pluma de Oaxaca. A second generation coffee farmer, Casimiro and his wife Reyna Petronila Luna farm 20 hectares (an unusually large farm for Pluma region) just outside San Agustin Loxicha, a community growing both coffee famous for its malic character and avocados. Casimiro's older children support in both farm work and marketing, contributing agronomic knowledge learned in local courses. In the off-season, the family works as blacksmiths. He's been one of the most consistent parts of our Oaxaca coffee community year over year, and we're excited for you to meet him.

Join Ali and Aleco for a conversation in the Foxhole​ with Prudencio of Valle Inca association in Cusco. The widely respected leader of one of our most key relationships in all of Peru, Prudencio (Jose Prudencio Saenz Vargas) is a Calca native who brings former experience as a bank loan officer to his work running Valle Inca—fiscal experience of critical importance to Valle Inca and the surrounding community, most of whom are smallholders averaging just 2-3 hectares each. When he got started he was new to coffee production, but his extreme quality focus has always been key to the group’s success.  He helped Valle Inca producers move from drying coffee on plastic mats to raised beds, worked to improve drying, fermentation, and storage practices, and was the first producing partner of ours to implement GrainPro in storing parchment. He meets farmers where they are in the isolated reaches of Yanatile and Lares and works with them to produce the best coffee they possibly can.

In this episode we host a conversation between Veracruz-based producer, wet mill manager and community leader Ernesto Perez and Red Fox Mexico sourcing and sales lead Adam McClellan. After Ernesto takes off, Adam and Aleco give us the rundown on the season thus far.  A younger farmer taking over the family farm and mill, he's working to guide community production into high quality specialty, tweak processing, focus on microlots, and help those around him get the best prices their work. He expanded his own wet mill at Finca Fatima into APG Coffee, a micro wet mill for the community that also offers agronomic consulting for other farmers to help rebuild soils and increase quality.

In this episode we had a conversation with Esperanza Dionisio, leader of the Pangoa cooperative in Peru's Selva Central and first ever woman cooperative leader in Peru. We discussed Esperanza's unique position in the Peru coffee world, the singular history of Pangoa, and the impacts of Covid-19 on the most recent harvest and shipping season. Esperanza is an incredible speaker and a powerful voice for gender equity.

Eden Kassahun is one of Red Fox's most integral supply chain partners and has been since we opened in the business in 2014. Eden and Aleco's history together goes back to her days at Technoserve where they first met in 2009. Eden helps us manage our supply partnerships with Kata Muduga, Kerchanshe, and Kedir Jebril. Her role couldn't be more critical to our success in executing early shipments as she manages much of the detail internally in Ethiopia as it pertains to transportation and logistics. Aleco also gives us the lowdown on how our Ethiopia season is shaking out on the whole.

Aleco and Julia had a conversation on the recent harvest, history, and future in Rwanda. They talk with Dormans Rwanda Country Manager Jean Bosco Seminega and Dormans Rwanda Operations Manager Longin Muhizi. Aleco has known both Jean Bosco and Longin for over a decade, well before Red Fox was formed and the two of them joined Dormans. Watch this episode to learn more about their histories in Rwanda coffee as well as the intricacies of the 2020 season.

In this episode we have a convo with Tibed Yujra of Putina Punco in Puno, Peru on the current season, current events in Puno and Peru at large, and effects of Covid-19 on this remote producing region.  A man who hardly needs an introduction, Tibed is family. A Putina Punco native, we met in Puno well over a decade ago, and after leaving Puno to do QC work around the world, he spent years helping us deepen our sourcing relationships and hone our logistics in Peru. Last year, he started his own association in Puno called Asocacion De Pequeños Productores De Cafe De Los Valles De Sandia, helping local producers maximize quality potential as well as their market share and ensuring that the prices buyers pay make it all the way back to farming families as promised.

In this episode we had conversation with Marilu Lopez Padilla of Northern Peru-based cooperative Coopbam on the state of the harvest, her history producing coffee, the effects of the pandemic, and what women leadership looks like in Coopbam.

In this episode, we hosted a Colombia producers roundtable with some of our longest-standing producing partners in the world: Geovanny Liscano from Asorcafe in Inzá, Colombia, Raquel Lasso of FUDAM in Nariño, Colombia, and Red Fox’s own Fabian Viveros León of Pitalito in Huila, Colombia.