Meanwhile, heavy rains a few weeks ago exacerbated the delay, with extra rainfall accelerating the ripening of coffee cherries. This means that more coffee will need to be harvested beyond the ideal time frame, which will also have a negative impact on quality, although so far the impact has not been significant.
Melo also said that cold weather had recently occurred in areas planted by members of the cooxupe cooperative, causing some frost, but so far, no damage has been done to the crops.
But when it comes to demand, Melo said, so far, cooxupe has not seen a drop in demand for coffee before the new coronavirus. The reason why premium coffee is affected is that coffee shops, restaurants, bars and hotels are big consumers of high-quality beans, and they are all closed. We expect things to get better again as coffee shops in Europe and Asia start to reopen.
Headquartered in guaxupe Town, Minas Gerais, cooxupe has more than 15200 members. Mr. Melo said the cooperative expects its members to produce about 10.3 million bags of coffee beans this year.
Brazil's coffee production cycle is two years, with even years producing more coffee than odd years. In 2018, members of cooxupe produced 9.6 million bags of coffee. Although the harvest in 2019 is less than that in 2018, it is the best financial year ever for the cooperative. Revenue of R $4.2 billion (US $844 million) a year from cooxupe distributed R $77.1 million to its members in addition to the money it spent selling its products to the cooperatives to growers
