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One year ago we landed in Vitória, Brazil, to participate in the Start-up Brasil Program. Our team of four was complete and we had a clear objective: demonstrate that our model of online green coffee sourcing was not just an idea. Now here we are, one year later, back in Switzerland with a live platform, happy first customers, many supporters helping us to learn fast and plan for the future! Good time to look back on this past year and show where we are heading in 2016!
Winning the Start-up Brasil Program and settling down in Vitória meant to live algrano 24 hours and to be able to travel just a few hours to reach the coffee plantations. This was crucial to understand how algrano could add value to growers. We have been working very closely with growers organizations like APAS and presented algrano to many growers in Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo! The platfrom as it is today is the result of these exchanges.
We could witness the movement towards specialty coffee production among coffee growers in Brazil. It is undoubtedly the awakening specialty coffee giant: still largely unknown, we are sure that coffees from Brazil will offer great surprises in the near future! We bundled a couple of interesting facts about Brazilian coffees here.
On our way up to Sweden to launch algrano at the SCAE annual event in Gothenburg in June, we crossed Germany from South to North and West to East meeting coffee people. We received lots of support and motivation when meeting roasters and explaining algrano! The trip was crowned by an important industry recognition for our work with the award for the best IT & Tech Innovation Award from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe! We could not expect better for the launch of algrano!
In July and August we saw the first orders of samples and coffee lots on the platform. Three growers from Nicaragua sold their coffees for the first time on an online marketplace. A tremendous success for them, the proof of concept for algrano and promising opportunities for growers worldwide! Coffee was successfully shipped and delivered to five roasters in Germany and Switzerland.
Following the global harvests calendar, Brazilian growers of the smallholders association APAS presented their coffees. What a great moment to train Alessandro, Ademilson and the rest of the team on how to create the profiles of their coffees on algrano! It really felt we were training growers on a new and promising tool that will serve them in the future.
2016 starts pretty well with the launch today of a container from the largely unknown state of Espirito Santo in Brazil. Harvested in November-December, much later than in the rest of Brazil, 11 microlots are presented by 10 growers. Don’t miss out their best microlots here.
In March growers from Nicaragua will feature their coffees and they will be followed by growers in Colombia! More detailed info soon!
Changing a centuries old system takes time, but the way is now clear. Here are our next steps:
Online community tools
Offer more tools for online interactions between growers and roasters (search functions, coffee profiles creation, contacting and exchanges features)
Pre-financing solutions for roasters
In 2016 we will be offering pre-financing solutions on the platform to keep roasters liquidity strong.
Mobile solutions for growers
Most growers skipped the computer step and only use their mobile to access internet. That is why we will develop mobile solutions for the growers.
Supply chain information hub
algrano wants to offer the access to important information on how the supply chain works and make it available to as many people as possible!
We would like to thank all those who are supporting and pushing us forward and we hope our paths will cross this year soon!
The algrano team