About us
Mission
OUR MISSION IS TO DE-COMMODITIZE THE WAY COFFEE IS TRADED.
Starting with our home country – and largest producing origin – Brazil, we give producers and co-operatives a platform to participate further within the coffee supply chain. This permits roasters and importers worldwide to generate greater impact at origin through direct relationships with our producer network on a full transparency & traceability model.
Impact at Origin
By sourcing with Union de Productores de Café, you are creating impact at origin with each bag, valuing the work of passionate specialty coffee producers and supporting a sustainable supply chain.
We take Direct Trade to it’s greatest extent.
Structure
From our origin base in Varginha/MG, heart of the world’s coffee production, we hunt for amazing quality profiles from our producer partners throughout Brazil. Our clients are always updated with our new findings for each market: Spot, Pre-shipment & Fob.
These hand picked selections are managed by our teams in Europe, where we hold sample hubs in Edinburgh and Toulouse.
With regular shipments programmed from Brazil, your direct sourcing can be planned according to your roasting schedule. Our warehouses are strategically in large coffee hubs to facilitate shipping consolidations for smaller micro roasters:
- UK roasters are serviced through our London warehouse;
- EU roasters from Antwerp;
- North America roasters through San Francisco.
Values
We value a transparent and humanized direct trade, working to connect people, share the stories behind exceptional coffees, produced by passionate Brazilian producers and support a sustainable supply chain.
Key Partnerships
Minasul Europe
A collaborative project between UPC and leading Brazilian Co-operative Minasul, is the result of over 10 years of relationships and work developing the specialty coffee department at the co-operative. With the purpose of bringing the added value of the European specialty coffee market back to origin, we teamed up to offer high quality coffees directly from producers, stored in Europe. This fully transparent and traceable model was a full cycle of our work with Minasul, having started from the quality development in 2012, to our first crop distributing these coffees to roasters across Europe in 2018.
Discover Brazil with Minasul Eruope
Knowing the common conception of Brazilian coffees being more of a traditional blend base component, we created the ”Discover Brazil with Minasul Europe” project: a cupping roadshow to rewrite the perception of Brazilian coffees.
During this project, we had the chance to travel for 11 days around Italy, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands making cupping sessions and presenting the best specialty coffees from Brazil to European roasters.
Coffee Nexus
Through our quality lab partnership with Coffee Nexus, all our coffees are independently assessed and detailed cupping notes are provided to help roasters select the coffees that are more aligned with their needs. A thorough quality analysis is provided before any coffee is selected, to make sure quality can be maintained during warehousing and shipment. Once arrived in Spot, pershipmet versus landed quality assessment is conducted before any final delivery to roasters is approved.
We understand sourcing directly from origin can be worrying. The independent quality control from Coffee Nexus helps us reassure roasting clients they will receive the quality contracted.