Meet Fabiano Borré
Every time we spend time with Fabiano at his farm Progresso,
we come away inspired, energised and excited about
bringing his coffee to Australia.
We first met Fabiano Borré in 2011, and have been working with his farm since 2015. We have been lucky enough to spend some magical time on his farm in Bahia, cupping with his team, checking out the plantation and the mill, and learning about his coffee farming business. Each time we come away inspired, energised and excited about bringing his coffee to Australia. Here is a little interview with Fabiano.
There are many aspects of your family business that you could be involved in.
Why did you choose coffee?
I am involved in other administrative aspects as well, but coffee is really my focus. From the beginning, I was immediately interested. The possibility of participating in something new and challenging was a great motivation. So when things started happening, I discovered that was no going back. The coffee provides us new ways, new challenges, new opportunities and many lessons every day. The direct involvement in all stages of production actually turn every work day in a different and rich experience. When you realize, work becomes a passion. Working with something so sensitive, so changeable, involving the most varied areas of knowledge and even share all this with incredible people, it’s amazing. That’s why I choose coffee!
What gets you out of bed in the morning? What gets you motivated and excited?
The possibility to do something new, to improve or reinvent something. It may be a routine, a business or simply a point of view. Do something better than it was done the day before. Working with coffee everything is possible.
“Working with something so sensitive, so changeable, involving the most varied areas of knowledge and then getting to share all this with incredible people… it’s amazing. That’s why I choose coffee!”
Describe your typical day
Usually I wake up at 6am and at 7am I’m already at the farm office. During the first hour at work we have an informal meeting with all the family members who works in the company and we shared some specific information or plans that will occur during the day. After this, we all had breakfast together and then back to work. I don’t have any specific routine, all depends of what is happening during the day and I try to follow the things that I fell is important. For example: if we are applying something in a coffee field/ if we are processing or loading some coffee/if there’s a problem with the irrigation system, I like to go there and see exactly what is going on. As we all know, coffee has very different stages and demands during the year. We have the flowering period, harvest period, post harvest…so the way how we look to the plants, the works we need to do, the plans and the problems change with this periods.
“On the other side we find the market, the suppliers, customers, financial situations, climate changes, quality control, environmental questions, workers, targets… so like I said, I can’t call any day a “typical day” working with coffee production.”
What do you think the secret is to the high quality of coffee El Progresso is able to achieve?
I believe we can say that the secret of the high quality coffee is to take the greatest possible care with all the details that we know. But, there will always be another side. The Nature Side. We can interfere in the coffee plants providing nutrients, soil conditions, water, controlling diseases, harvesting at the right time. We can control the pulping processes, drying, grading and tasting. However we also have the influences of altitude, temperature, rain, wind and other things that we can’t control. Thinking on this way, I’m proud to say that in PROGRESSO we trying to do the best we can in all the details that we already know. As a result, we are improving the quality year by year, but I really can’t say how far we can get. Let’s see!
What are you excited about this year?
I am excited with a lot of things for this year. We will continue working to do even better at this crop. The new is that we have implemented “suspended yards” (African Beds) to try to improve and take more care of our micro lots. Hope this make difference and still pushing the quality. In addition, we have excellent new partners and new markets who motivate us. Our participation in the Cup Of Excellence last year and result we had also keeps us on line to try one more step. On the other hand we are facing a serious water crisis in our region, then efforts to bring coffee to the crop will be larger and certainly big challenges will appear.
