On first of December, the board of the Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA) took office and as its first action, Silvio Leite was elected president of the entity.
The mandate is from December 2014 to November 2015 and may be extended for another year. For the next 12 months, Javier Faus Neto will be the vice president and Edgard Bressani the Board Secretary.
The administrative responsibility of the Association is in charge of Marina Figueiredo, who will address the relationship with associates, administration and internal procedures of the institution.
Vanusia Nogueira as the director will be responsible for national and international promotion and the relationship with partners, including the governmental sphere and organizations such as the Brazilian Agency for Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brazil) and Sebrae.
The complete organizational structure can be find in the BSCA site (http://bsca.com.br/estrutura-organizacional.php).
The new president said that his objective is to boost promotion of the Brazilian specialty coffee in domestic and foreign markets, in addition to consolidating the Association as the main product visibility platform.
“The entire path taken by BSCA so far is exemplary and helped fix the image of our country as a quality supplier and quantity, being faithful to the commitments made with buyers. Let us keep this and explore some new points that the market has signaled, “he says.
According to Leite, his administration aims to continue to expand the supply of specialty coffee in the domestic market.
“There is a growing demand. The Brazilian people is passionate about coffee and has discovered flavors that have never been offered here previously. This is an opening promising market and we need to consolidate it, “he explains.
He also considers that natural coffee in Brazil have huge potential in the specialty niche, making one of the pillars of the structure that is being developed.
“Our pulped natural coffee achieved a fantastic market in the world, because the BSCA took advantage of opportunities and put the main international buyers in touch with them.
We also began this work with the specialty natural coffee, in which I believe a lot in your environmentally friendly production system, which has attracted tremendous interest due to the discovery of exceptional qualities, with new attributes of flavors that are delighting coffee professionals worldwide”, he concludes.
About the President
Silvio Leite is one of the most prominent coffee cuppers in Brazil. Certified by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), he uses the world`s main tasting and classifying protocols and participates as a judges in many national and international coffee quality contests.
Silvio is a founder of the Cup of Excellence cupping protocol and program, and continues this work as head-judge of this contest, which has spread out to 11 producing countries to award the best coffees.
Silvio is an expert in coffee classification, cupping and quality control, with more than 30 years of experience in these domains.
During this time, Silvio has also worked at Bozzo group for 12 years. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, he was responsible for implementing and controlling quality in all unities worldwide.
At Agribahia, a company of Espírito Santo group, Silvio has worked for 14 years as commercial and industrial director, being in charge of coffee quality throughout the process.
Nowadays, Silvio is considered a reference in Brazil`s coffee industry. His work has contributed to the development of the coffee market in the state of Bahia, where he is the president of both the local Coffee Producers Association and Coffee Trading Center.
Silvio is also the owner of the companies AgriCoffee, Sweet Bahia Café and Proud Cafés Classificados (Lanço Trading group from Switerland)
