CECANOR: About The Cooperative

The CECANOR Cooperative was the first of the ‘Café Femenino’ concepts in the world. This organisation aim to readdress the gender imbalance in the coffee industry. Whilst women have always been an integral part of the coffee trade, they have typically been omitted from economic roles or from financially benefiting from the industry they helped to create.

“We have used the money we receieved from the Café Femenino premium to invest in improving our homes, providing education for our daughters and improving the food that we feed our families”

The profits from this cooperative are invested into improved water storage for remote Andean communities, income diversification for coffee farmers and improving road access to mountainous coffee growing regions. Sustianability isn’t only measured by reliable crop yields, but fair price guarantees, infrastructure support and improved education. This prevents farmers from turning to growing commodity coffee (a much easier product to produce) and incentivises them to keep higher quality coffee in existence.