CafExporto is making a significant investment in our post-harvest, production line, dry-mill equipment. Presently our coffee makes one pass through the dry-mill equipment line which includes: threshing1, mechanical-classification table2, air purifier3, and densimetric table4. We are adding three conveyer-towers and an optical scanner to improve working conditions, provide continuous passes through the equipment, and enhance final quality.
- An objective of the new production line is to improve the working conditions of the people in the processing plant. We are adding three elevators so that people do not lift weight and their work focuses on quality control.
- The mechanical-classification, density sorting and cleaning of coffee is of vital importance so that it reaches the roasters in ideal conditions (minimum defects). For this reason, we are implementing a CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION LINE in the Cafexporto process plant. That is, the coffee will now have an indeterminate number of times that it passes through the classifier, air purifier and densimetric table, without having any type of contact with external factors. With this new system, we can calibrate to even finer control and allow coffee to pass multiple times.
- With the Optical Scanner, coffee beans of undesirable color, green and dry will be identified and removed with extreme precision, according to adjustable parameters. With this equipment, when the coffee reaches the manual-classification table, where people sort every bean, the base quality of the beans will be much higher, making human inspection less stressful on workers and resulting in less human error.
- It’s a common belief that multi-laminate vacuum-packing is the most effective way to preserve green coffee quality. CafExporto will begin to vacuum pack limited quantities of the 2023 harvest. At present, we must balance this with Ecuador’s need to open coffee bags leaving Ecuador for narcotics inspection and the preferences of customers.
This upgrade will make CafExporto the most modern of the three, specialty coffee processors in Ecuador. Both Juan Peña and Juan Andres Tapia oversee the calibration of the equipment as they continuously cup the coffees.
1 Coffee bean pulper, huller peeling, thresher, peeler, sheller machine. Cleans the parchment to green coffee.
2 Size and shape of the beans sorting – filters by calibrating to specific bean size.
3 Coffee is cleaned after the thresher and sorter by airflow that removes contaminants.
4 The settings on the machine must be continuously monitored to ensure that proper density sorting is occurring. The light and less dense coffee beans move to the right bottom side of the table, whereas the dense high-quality coffee beans move to the upper third of the table. This table will also remove any remaining debris that have made it through the previous density and size sorting stages.
