Puerto Rico Coffee Roasters on Thursday launched an awareness and social responsibility project dubbed “Sembrando el Bien,” (“Sowing the Good”) whose goal is to preserve and spare natural resources by developing sustainable agriculture to contribute to the island’s well being.
Gustos Coffee Co., producers of the Casa Grande brand of Puerto Rican-grown 100 percent Arabica coffee, is getting ready to expand its presence in the island’s retail market, investing $1 million in its operation to meet growing local demand for its aromatic home-grown java.
Even as Starbucks Coffee Puerto Rico LLC readies to unveil a new store on Loíza St., it is scouting for prime locations for the new stores planned for 2014 in an investment that could reach $1.5 million, said a company official.
A Puerto Rican coffee and banana farmer in Utuado is among the 424 projects recently chosen to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop renewable energy projects on their premises to reduce their energy consumption and costs.
The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit in federal court against Beneficiado de Café Las Indieras, doing business as Hacienda Remanso de Paz, and its president, Wilfredo Ruiz-Vargas, for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and record-keeping provisions.
Puerto Rico’s Gov. Alejandro García-Padilla announced Wednesday his administration’s plans to strengthen the island’s ailing coffee industry, vowing to help harvest an additional 15,000 acres of new crops and generating 6,000 new jobs over the next two years.
The Puerto Rico Agriculture Department has been awarded $352,290 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop eight projects that will increase sales of specialty crops by improving food safety through training and mentoring programs, the federal agency announced Tuesday.
Starbucks Refreshment Destination, a unique beachfront kiosk that opened recently at the Caribe Hilton hotel, is the first of its kind to serve its customers while they sunbathe, hotel said.
Looking to rescue Puerto Rico’s dwindling coffee industry and increase production of the aromatic brew, Agriculture Secretary Myrna Comas-Pagán signed Wednesday several contracts to prompt the availability of 16 million coffee trees in the near future.
Puerto Rico Agriculture Secretary Myrna Comas told lawmakers during budget hearings Monday that upon arriving to the agency in January, she uncovered an entity “in a precarious situation, with the lowest budget in its history, only 337 employees, no updated agricultural statistics, and no field level progress reports to evaluate and track work."
Specialty Coffee Institute of the Caribbean, the island’s first university-run coffee tasting laboratory, was inaugurated Thursday at the University of Puerto Rico in Utuado, with the goal of fostering the development of high-quality coffee.
Starbucks Coffee is marking its 10th anniversary in Puerto Rico with the opening of its 20th coffee shop at the Plaza Las Américas mall in Hato Rey. The store that opened Monday is located on the second level of the shopping center's west hallway, facing Coach.
During the month of October, El Meson Sandwiches is celebrating “Manos al Cafetal” (“A Hand to the Coffee Farms”), an initiative to raise awareness about the lack of workers available to harvest Puerto Rico’s coffee crops.
More than 1,000 students hit Puerto Rico’s coffee fields over the weekend to pick the ripe beans alongside a crew of government officials, the Agriculture Department confirmed.
The flavors and aromas of coffee and chocolate will waft through the Puerto Rico Convention Center Sept. 22-23 during the Coffee & Chocolate Expo, an event that has attracted more than 40,000 visitors in the past two years, becoming the largest exhibition in the Caribbean for the industries and their complementary products.
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