PHOENIX, U.S. – Jean Ekobo, CEO of BioNovelus Inc. recently attended the ‘Sintercafe – International Coffee Week,’ the largest coffee convention in Central America.
This year, Sintercafé celebrated its 30th anniversary in San Jose, Costa Rica, with an attendance of approximately 500 participants, from 25 countries including both coffee producers and consumers.
The coffee industry is the second largest commodity market in the world to the oil industry (Source: Business Insider).
Since the late 19th century, the coffee industry has been plagued by Coffee Rust or “Roya” (Hemileia vastatrix) a devastating fungus that attacks the Arabica plant.
Billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of industry jobs have been lost throughout Central America since 2012 to this Coffee Rust epidemic. (Source: ICafé).
The entire coffee belt from Indonesia to Africa, to Central and South America to Vietnam and Asia is seeking a remedy to this Coffee Rust epidemic.
‘Sintercafé – International Coffee Week’ presented the perfect occasion for BioNovelus Inc. to introduce its organic coffee rust killer, biofungicide, CR-10, following 9 months of highly successful testing in coffee plantations throughout Costa Rica and Guatemala.
CR-10’s biodegradable solution as well as its organic, non-toxic yet highly effective coffee rust killing agent, is captivating coffee professionals from around the world.
At Sintercafé, BioNovelus’ CEO, Jean Ekobo met Craig Russell, the Executive Vice President of Starbucks Global Coffee, along with Starbucks’s team of agronomic engineers at ‘Hacienda Alsacia,’ Starbucks’ 240-hectare coffee farming research and development center. Always open to new solutions, the Starbucks Team asked to test CR-10 at Hacienda Alsacia.
Ekobo also met again with Costa Rican National Coffee Association, ICafé, to present an update and summary of all the CR-10 testing ongoing in 12 farms in Costa Rica and Guatemala.
In support of BioNovelus, ICafé requested an opportunity to conduct a phase II testing.
One of the objectives of a phase II testing is to prove that the organic product CR-10 can be as effective (if not more so) as its toxic chemical competitors in eradicating coffee rust.
ICafé believes that there is no other organic product on the coffee-rust-killing-market, therefore, research on CR-10 has moved to the next level.
