The Força Café Competition is a singular opportunity for smallholder farmers in Brazil to show off their best coffees. With the contest now in its eighth year, many of these producers have spent seven years focusing on coffee quality improvements alongside agronomists from the nonprofit Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung Foundation (HRNS) do Brazil — and it’s time to celebrate their hard work and successes!
With the example of last year’s successful remote competition, we’ll again be relying on our InterAmerican team, the NKG Quality team in Switzerland, our colleagues at exporter Stockler in Brazil, and a handful of U.S. roaster volunteers (who we could not be more grateful for) to narrow the selections and determine the winners.
This year’s schedule is as follows:
• Oct. 11–15: Semifinal Regional Cuppings. Lots will be cupped from Matas de Minas, Circuito das Águas and Campo das Vertentes, determining the top four naturals from each region (and so three regional champions) as well as the top 10 semi-washed/pulped naturals.
• Oct. 29: Final Cupping. The top four Naturals from each region are cupped in this final round, in competition for the top cup!
• Nov. 3: Awards Ceremony. During a live ceremony at noon in Brazil, the top-three performing coffees will be announced and celebrated along with the three regional winners and all top-performing producers.
• Nov. 3–5: Online Auction! Speak with your trader and let us bid on your behalf. (You have to bid on a coffee the first day to compete the second, so please reach out early!)
• December onward: Winning lots will be shipped and delivered.
A few FAQs:
What do the winning producers receive?
Stockler is allowing 42 lots in the competition and will purchase each of these at an above-market rate.
For winning coffees, Stockler guarantees a price minimum of 100 Brazil Real (or, approximately $18.33) per bag over the local market rate of a defined date. At auction, any amount paid by a roaster over Stockler’s purchase price will go directly to the producer.
What is Casa da Criança?
Casa da Criança(“House of the Children”) is a community center and critical resource for the coffee area of Santo Antônio do Amparo. The center offers inexpensive classes and training for adults and is a safe place for children during after-school hours, offering not just care but lessons and classes that open doors to opportunity. There are countless stories of the center truly changing and saving lives.
At auction, winning purchasers can choose to pay an additional 10 cents/lb that goes directly to the center. These donations have historically purchased supplies for the center, including mats for the Taekwondo studio. (The year that funding was used for travel to a Taekwondo competition, a 14-year-old girl from the center won the state-level championship.)
What is HRNS do Brasil?
This nonprofit was founded in 2007 with a mission to create practical and sustainable experiences that can improve farmers’ access to services, training and markets, farms’ productivity and practices, and farming families’ incomes and quality of life. In 2013, HRNS do Brasil and NKG Stockler teamed up to broaden the reach of some projects.
A mutual goal of the Força Café Competition is to highlight beautiful small lots and smallholder farmers’ efforts, in order to prevent carefully produced microlots from being blended into larger, indistinct lots. •
For more information, this blog post offers a richer explanation of the auction, its impact and its origins. Video caption: Cupping coffees on the NKG farm Fazenda da Lagoa, during the 2019 Forca Cafe.
