Artidoro Rodríguez Café announces US distribution of boutique Peruvian coffee at SCA Expo
Artidoro Rodríguez Café (Artidoro), a boutique Peruvian coffee company, announced today the launch of its brand in the United States into the retail and food service/hotel industry sectors, where it will control the import and distribution of Peruvian coffee produced by small coffee growers in the Amazonas and Villa Rica regions of Peru. The company is celebrating its launch at the 2024 Specialty Coffee Expo, taking place at Chicago’s McCormick Place from 12-24 April 2024.
Artidoro: the bridge between coffee growers and buyers
“Artidoro is an organisation committed to supporting Peruvian coffee growing whose objective is to open bridges between coffee communities and new international markets. It’s this mission that inspired our entry into the United States, since it is the country that receives a large portion of the coffee exports from Peru,” said Félix Rodríguez, CEO of Artidoro Rodríguez Café.
The company plans to not only export coffee, but also to directly take charge of its commercialisation in the American retail and hospitality sectors. The resulting increased brand recognition will help raise visibility of boutique Peruvian coffee growers and the quality of their production among international consumers, explained Félix Rodríguez, the grandson of Artidoro, after whom the company, founded in 2017, is named.
To achieve its goal of international expansion, the brand creates strategic alliances with producers in which Artidoro is responsible for providing capital and business experience to find buyers, while coffee growers focus on improving their production practices and coffee bean quality.
Among the prominent producers with whom this brand works is Carmen Ampuero from the community of Nuevo Chirimoto in the Amazonas region, who is recognized as a leader in the area for having brought together more than 15 families of coffee growers to consolidate production to meet demand. Thanks to the commercial management of Artidoro Rodríguez Café, they are currently exporting nearly 19 tons of coffee monthly to various parts of the world.
“The alliances we create with producers allow us to obtain better prices for their work and thus we ensure that their work is profitable and they are able to invest in their farms,” Rodríguez noted. “Good coffee should not only be a pleasant consumer experience but also a means for coffee farmers to achieve their dreams. We want them to concentrate on their work on the farms to replicate these processes in other regions of the country.”
Coffee Bars in Peruvian restaurants part of US and global launch plan
Artidoro Rodríguez Cafe’s plan in the United States includes the early summer 2024 opening of a branded coffee bar in Taty’s Chicken, a Peruvian restaurant in Manassas, Virginia, founded by Peruvian businessman Felipe Muñoz. Rodríguez says the alliance generated with this restaurant will allow them to introduce Peruvian coffee to local consumers who enjoy Peruvian cuisine, which is very popular in Virginia.
“We are seeking others like Felipe Muñoz with a presence in the U.S. and around the world who have a passion for Peruvian food, and who want to help promote a global recognition of Peruvian coffee, since the families of more than 223,000 small producers depend on this crop,” said Rodríguez.
At SCA in Chicago, the Artidoro Rodríguez Café team will host tastings of the coffees from Amazonas, Cajamarca, Villa Rica and Cusco regions with which they currently supply the Peruvian market. Currently, the brand is present in more than 300 stores of the country’s main supermarket chains.