The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) announced last Friday the appointment of Andrés Latorre as a new member of its Board of Directors.
With a background in economics and science, Latorre is the Founder and Managing Director of Latorre & Dutch Coffee (L&D), a globally established business sourcing, processing, and selling speciality coffee.
Utilising his background, he focuses on innovation and technology to produce high quality coffee while supporting coffee farmers. Latorre is also responsible for Pura Cepa, a project incorporating technology, science, and innovation to ensure there is “full circle sustainability” in the coffee processing.
In Pura Cepa, Latorre focuses on the science and innovation of fermentation and drying to improve coffee quality and to develop guidelines for the coffee industry. This research will form the groundwork for some of ACE’s plans.
“With wine there is very strict guidelines on what is wine and how you should ferment it, what bacteria to use and not to use.” Latorre says.
“With coffee there is none of this, and a lot of it is because the lack of science and research there is. So, our plan is to dig deep into this and to create guidelines to help farmers and buyers to get an understanding of what it is they are buying.”
Latorre has been a strong member of ACE for past decade, already helping the organisation to expand into Asian markets.
“We helped them to get interest and to get traction through our China office; we’ve [also] done a lot of Cup of Excellence cupping courses in China.” Latorre comments.
Board members of ACE are elected by the group’s members and remain for three-year terms.
“My focus group will be coffee quality and new processes to get a better scientific understanding of coffee.” Latorre comments when asked on his future plans for ACE. “We’ve partnered with a lot of renowned scientists to create guidelines to start on what to do and what not to do”.
Latorre was also part of the ACE’s advisory board where he aided on increasing the understanding of coffee quality before being appointed and stays informed of occurrences and annual changes within the coffee industry.
ACE is an international non-profit organisation that aims to support high quality coffee farmers through creating transparent and sustainable coffee economy.
“Andrés brings a vast amount of experience and enthusiasm to our organisation and we look forward to his contribution and global perspective,” Darrin Daniels, Executive Director of Ace comments.