Description

The Chicoj cooperative is made up of Q’eqchi Guatemalans. The history of the cooperative’s name, Chicoj, comes from the Q’eqchi word for mask. They chose this name due to the large mask-shaped rock found in their community. 

 The cooperative was founded in 1985, by 21 associates. In the beginning, coffee production was minimal, around 38,600 – 42,750 pounds of coffee cherries a year, but in time the associates managed to get credits, training, and technical assistance to achieve better coffee management, learn how to make a seedbed, how to take care of the warehouse and even how to improve the wet mill process. The improvements helped increase coffee production and processing, and more work opportunities opened up. The development of this cooperative not only helped the members of the community but brought more people from the surrounding villages in. This cooperative now has more than 400 members. Nowadays, they process about 4,000 pounds of coffee cherries per day at the mill, and by the end of the harvest will have processed around 2,700,000 pounds of coffee cherries.