Farm: Conquista
Grower: Bruno Menali
City: Ilicínea
Region: Southern Minas Gerais
Altitude: 1200
Varieties: Yellow Catuaí and Topázio
Planted area: 50 hectares
History
Since 1910, the Conquista farm is one of the main coffee producers in the region. Its founder, Mr. Juca de Oliveira, has always been ahead of other producers, making use of great innovations and ideas. Today, Bruno Menali Oliveira, his great-grandson, runs the farm. The lawyer gave up a solid career to pursue that of a coffee grower. He is always looking for new techniques, especially postharvest techniques. Bruno focuses on the qualification of his employees and is improving the physical structure of the farm. In 2017 Bruno bought a dryer and a coffee washer, thinking of further improving the quality of his coffee drink. He did several post-harvest courses and coffee tasting. Bruno recently placed a few static boxes near the coffee drying patio for drying and fermenting the lots. The plantations are far from the yards and therefore, Bruno has a tractor to transport the grains. In the farm lives 1 collaborator with his family and at the time of the harvest, are contracted around 20 collaborators. The plantations are in an accessible place, so the harvest is made by agricultural machinery. But always thinking about the best quality of coffee, some women are hired to make selective harvesting of some plantations. The beginning of the harvest is in the month of May and until August all planted area is harvested. Bruno has a machine to clean dry coffee and soon after cleaning its grains, it helps all its neighbors, cleaned lots of each. Bruno is very excited and happy to be a coffee grower and seeks excellence every year.