A Note about Cup of Excellence from Kentaro Maruyama
 

Café Imports has been a Cooperating Importer for the Cup of Excellence program for years and Jason has helped tremendously with promoting CoE among roasters in the US. While he does see resolving some of the issues to increase US participation as a personal goal, Jason also has vision for the broader structure and strategies of ACE: to increase awareness and marketability of ‘national winners,’ to stimulate the membership into activity and to extend the reach of CoE and ACE outside of the coffee industry: “Marketing on a global scale takes a budget that we are unlikely to have, but can the Cup of Excellence get press in gourmet food and wine journals around the globe? How about a partnership with the Slow Food Movement, or likeminded socially conscious – aesthetically inclined organizations?”
 

Managing Director of Solberg & Hansen AS in Oslo, Norway. Board member of Nordic Barista Cup and cupper at several COE competitions. SH was founded in 1879 and has good traditions for buying only the highest quality coffees available. Solberg & Hansen AS was the first lifetime member of ACE and is the only company to have purchased coffee at every Cup of Excellence auction since the beginning.

“SH have in addition to participating on the international jury with its staff also had representatives on the Advisory Panel of ACE. I am now hoping to be able to contribute on the ACE Board.”
 

Flori started working in coffee at the age of 17 in milling facilities in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. She has been a Director at Mercanta since 1997 traveling extensively to source exceptional coffees and to assist growers in accessing and building relationships with the most demanding roasters around the world.

She participated on the very first and the milestone 50th Nicaragua Cup of Excellence jury as well as juries in Colombia, Rwanda, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. She also manages a coffee farm in Costa Rica giving her a unique perspective of the issues faced by farmers.

“I have a very close relationship with specialty coffee growers and have been at the forefront of providing market access for many producers. I speak fluent Spanish and travel extensively and can carry the Cup of Excellence flag to five continents. Wherever possible I would seek to find a way at putting Cup of Excellence on a more secure financial footing. ACE needs to broaden its consumer base as well as its origin base. Most of the specialty industry is aware of Cup of Excellence whether they participate or not. But most consumers have very little recognition or understating of the brand. It is a far superior concept than any other certification and if I can help build one quarter of the awareness that these other brands have and help to put forward the case for Cup of Excellence, that will be a significant achievement”.
 

Bontain was one of the first Pioneer Lifetime Members of the program, and Yoshi has personally participated in over 20 competitions and auctions. An avid photographer, Yoshi might be one of CoE’s most valuable storytellers - not to mention his winsome and trilingual sense of humor. Yoshi sees the bridge that is built between coffee producers and consumers with each Cup of Excellence competition and hopes to improve the systems of communication at both ends of the spectrum. “I would like to try to find and construct the system to present CoE coffee tastes and background in order to get maximum recognition from both buyers and consumers.” With a majority of CoE award-winning coffee being bought at auction by Japanese companies, Yoshi’s voice on the board will be invaluable for the future of the Cup of Excellence.
 

Francois founded Café Noble S.A which matches producers/exporters with buyers/importers that share the same values: quality, transparency, social and environmental responsibility.  He developed a strategic alliance with Expocert Café S.A. with the aim to offer a diversified spectrum of origins, qualities and certificates. In his business model, producers and buyers have a direct relationship. He promotes customer visits to the origin countries as well as producer visits to consuming countries.  Previously to this he worked as a trader/exporter in Costa Rica.  He is fluent in Spanish, French, English and Portuguese (German 50%).

He has been a Sintercafe Board Member and Vice President and a Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica Board member since 2000. He was in charge of the CoE committee for the 2007/2008/2009 Costa Rica programs.

“As representative of one of the newest countries I would like to bring fresh ideas and help make CoE sustainable which is the biggest challenge.  I would consult with the Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica and the other producing countries to understand their needs.  I would like to see ACE’s income incorporate a more flexible creative structure using the auction as a variable portion in addition to the now fixed fee. I would like to examine more flexibility of the CoE protocols for each country instead of a fixed set and reducing costs would be helpful to everyone.  I think it is necessary for CoE to promote the seal more at the consumer level and at retail stores and develop other large marketplaces in order to reduce eventual concentration and dependence in too few buyers.”
 

William’s coffee heritage began four generations ago when his great-grandfather emigrated from Germany and established himself in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. From 1987 to 1993 William was a member of Anacafé's Board of Directors, serving as President in 1993.  In 2000, he was reelected as Director, a position he has been elected to since that date.  From 2007 -2009 he served on the ACE Board of Directors and has been involved in the Guatemalan Cup of Excellence since its inception.

He developed several Anacafé marketing projects: Guatemala's coffee regions; Rainbow Mountain, and the GPS oriented Atlas of Guatemalan Coffees.  He has coordinated recent publications, Green Book and Portraits of Quality and has edited three books: "The History of Coffee in Guatemala", "Four Centuries of Cartographic Expressions of the Isthmus of Central America, 1500-1900", and “Inspired by Coffee” (2010).  He is working on a book celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Guatemalan National Coffee Association.

“I believe the Cup of Excellence program has great potential for promoting quality coffees to demanding roasters in the world.  It has a transparent and effective protocol for identifying quality and a competitive mechanism for pricing.  This should make the program highly appealing to origin countries.  The benefits of the program have got to be effectively marketed to targeted countries but to be sustainable and appealing to origin countries it must have a competitive price tag.  I will help CoE to work creatively to seek other income sources not only in consumer countries but also at origin.  CoE needs to continue to standardize its protocols so that all participating countries are executing the same program.  CoE needs to implement electronic cupping methodologies.  And finally CoE needs to broaden its bidder base by effectively promoting to more roasters seeking distinctive cup profiles.  I can think of no other program that can present such a universe of quality coffees from different origins.”
 

Bernd Braune has held several senior executive and director positions at publicly traded companies in Europe and the US. In 2004 he started SUPREMO in Germany and is now its Chief Executive Officer. SUPREMO was named Roaster of the Year in 2008 in Germany by CREMA magazine. As a strong supporter of Cup of Excellence, Bernd has actively promoted the program. The top food magazine "Der Feinschmecker" published several SUPREMO stories about Cup of Excellence. He is a member of the board of the German Coffee Association and also serves as Chairman of the Board of an US-based technology company.

“This is a critical time for ACE and it will be very important to have an active and productive board of directors as ACE plans for its future. It would be a pleasure to offer both my time and my expertise to the future development of ACE and the Cup of Excellence program.”