Prudencio of Valle Inca, Peru on Building Trust & Community

Prudencio (Jose Prudencio Saenz Vargas) is the widely respected leader of Valle Inca in Cusco, Peru, one of our largest and most important relationships in the world. A Calca native, Prudencio grew up on a coffee farm, studied agronomy, and then went on to work as a bank loan officer before running Valle Inca—fiscal experience of critical importance to Valle Inca and the surrounding community, most of whom are smallholders averaging just 2-3 hectares each. His extreme quality focus has always been key to the group’s success. He helped Valle Inca producers move from drying coffee on plastic mats to raised beds, worked to improve drying, fermentation, and storage practices, and was the first producing partner of ours to implement GrainPro in storing parchment. He meets farmers where they are in the isolated reaches of Yanatile and Lares and works with them to produce the best coffee they possibly can for the best price they can get. What follows is a conversation with Prudencio, aired originally on the Foxhole and edited for clarity and brevity. 

Aleco: Hello and welcome to the Foxhole. Aleco Chigounis here with Ali Newcomb. Today we have one of our most special guests: our good friend José Prudencio Vargas Sáez, from Calca, Cusco. He is the leader of the Valle Inca group, which, while still being a relatively small and new group, has become the largest Red Fox sourcing partner by volume in the world. We have grown with Prudencio from 40 bags the first year, to almost 12 containers that were made last year and from there they will continue to grow. 

Welcome Prudencio! It’s a pleasure to have you here. 

Prudencio: Thank you.

Aleco: Can you tell us a little bit about how you started the Valle Inca group?

Prudencio: Yes. My name is José Prudencio Vargas Sáez, I am the son of a coffee producer, from the community Laco Llavero in the district of Yanatile, province of Calca, region of Cusco, Peru. I’ve been in the coffee industry my entire life. I was born on a coffee farm named Tomas Huato in Laco Llavero. Later I studied agriculture in a Salesian school. Coffee is my life. It’s my life, it’s my world, it’s what I do, and it makes me feel good. All of my family are coffee producers. There are coffee producers in my community that have really suffered from low prices in the past and been totally abandoned when prices were low. All of that is what inspired me to start Valle Inca.

Aleco: What year did you start the association? 

Prudencio: In the year 2015 and in our first year we sold just 20 quintals of coffee to Red Fox. It’s been six years since Valle Inca started taking form, but four since we had full legal status.

Aleco: How many producers did you start with?

Prudencio: We started with just five producers in the Yanatile Valley. Among them, we have Mr. Agustin Ccasa, Juan Jose, Eddy Robles, and other coffee producers that didn’t really believe in an organization like this at the beginning. Just like any other startup, there’s not much credibility early on. But by 2017, we were working with 50 coffee producers. In 2018, we worked with about 127 producers. And currently we are working with 260 coffee producers.

Aleco: That is incredible, Prudencio—congratulations!

Ali: How was the process for you, because you were a loan officer at Agrobanco (agrarian bank) before that, no?

Prudencio: Yes.

Ali: You were working with the coffee producers then but making agricultural loans. And from there, you went on to start Valle Inca.

Prudencio: Yes, that’s right. The thing is that I have been involved in agriculture my entire life. Beginning with where I was born, where I went to school, and leading up to the moment that I worked with Agrobanco making loans to coffee producers. It’s a different world and very helpful experience, and in parallel I was working with the organization that is now Valle Inca, but with a small amount of coffee. The financial experience has helped a lot. 

Ali: What have been some of the challenges? You started with only 20 quintals your first year and just five coffee producers, and now you have grown to a large organization, exporting a lot of coffee—more than 15 containers per year. What challenges have you faced in that process?

Prudencio: The main challenges are, paying a sustainable price to the coffee producer, obtaining high quality coffee, and being able to reach new coffee producers. And to fstablish equity so the producer, the intermediary, and the consumer are happy: that is the challenge that Valle Inca set out to achieve. 

But the biggest challenge in Peru is always getting fair prices for the producers. The next one, is the quality. That for us, is very important. The quality is very important, to look for, to research more. Find more producers, to understand the altitudes, the varieties, the genetics. Coffee is its own world, a world that millions of families depend on. All of that is the work we do. 

Ali: Regarding quality, I think we all recognize that you have been very successful, and just a moment before this meeting we drank a spectacular coffee from Combapata. 

Prudencio: I am drinking a coffee from Alto de Cedruyoc, from Emilio Gutierrez. It’s early coffee from the 2021 harvest.

Aleco: Very good.

Ali: Prudencio, I know Valle Inca plays a big role in the community, more than just buying coffee. Can you tell us a little bit about that role and how this has played a part in facing the pandemic?

Prudencio: As you said, Valle Inca is not just an organization that buys and sells coffee. Our goal is to find a sustainable future for the community. We work to be calm and coordinated in our decision making, and that was key during the pandemic to maintain trust and support the community. At Valle Inca we keep our word. We fulfilled everything we committed to and focused our resources on producer needs. If someone needs a loan, we have to find a way to do it, whether we have the resources or not to support them in their hardest moments. Now we have to look after health issues, social effects. For example, right now we’re working to get psychologists for the producers, so they can improve their mental health and quality of life. We’re also responsible for finding a good price for them, to offer them that stability. In turn, they do the best work they can offer. 

That all helped us a lot through the pandemic. 2020 was a very difficult year, but as a collective I have to thank Red Fox, and your clients for the donation you made to us. It all adds up. Here in Peru, we were lucky to be able to look for help from the municipalities and NGOs to help all the producers: with staple goods, mainly to cover the food needs. At the moment, we are working full force disseminating information to gain the producers’ trust, and to improve their trust in the clients and the entire chain.

Aleco: What would you say have been the main achievements of the cooperative since you started?

Prudencio: Of course, when we started in 2015, Valle Inca sold 20 quintals, and never in our lives could we have imagined selling 5,000-6,000 quintals of coffee per year. Every year we set a goal, evaluating, analyzing, and measuring production factors and risks. The biggest achievements have been growing and selling more coffee, and selling coffee that was of a high quality, for the consumer, for everyone really. We want coffee we are all happy with. That’s the goal. We’re also proud of working on the social aspects, the collaborative association that we manage. To gain producers’ trust and always keep our word with them. 

Ali: That’s a great answer. Prudencio, I wanted to ask you this, because you are one of the people who does this the best. What is the key to having a good relationship and communication with the producers?

Prudencio: In summary: trust. The trust that exists between us and the producers. At the end of the day, we are a family, we are the Valle Inca family. That the workers at Valle Inca can feel at home, that they can feel that we are siblings, someone they can count on to share their weaknesses or their sad stories, everything: trust. A resounding trust like with Red Fox—just like we can trust Aleco not just to keep his word but to let us know if there’s a mistake we’re making, that’s part of trust with the producers as well, what mistakes are we making, and how we can improve, and all that. In that way we can all build  trust. That is the key to building an association. And of course, to keep our word.

Ali: Well, I love working with you. All of that work shows in how everything flows and you do an incredible job as a team, with the producers as well as with your employees, and with Red Fox, because you are always very direct, you are very transparent, and you make things flow very well.

Aleco: Yes, the communication has always been open and direct with you. That is fundamental, to be able to have a good relationship in this industry.

Prudencio: It’s very important. For example, in the beginning, we are very thankful to Red Fox because if Red Fox didn’t exist, Valle Inca wouldn’t exist either, and if there weren’t coffee producers, Red Fox wouldn’t exist either. Inca Valley is on the producer side, and all of us, we all fill a gap in this supply chain. What we have to do is improve every day, to increase the production area of ​​the producers, and continue to improve the genetics in the coffee in Peru. That is the main goal. We also have the goal of winning international competitions, national competitions, to continue being a transparent company, and to sell quality coffee.

Aleco: Excellent, Prudencio! Do you have any questions for us?

Prudencio: First of all, I want to thank Aleco for the trust, because when I started Valle Inca, we were very young. We were young and we didn’t know exactly what to do at every turn, and maybe we made mistakes, but we learned from that. Thanks to Red Fox for helping us out all these years. And for being an institution that we trust fully, because you’ve helped us grow, and have helped a lot of other businesses grow and organizations and cooperatives in Peru, in Puno, in Cusco, Cajamarca, and other places in the world. I would like to ask you if you are happy working with Valle Inca?

Aleco: Truly Prudencio, it is my pleasure completely … well, ours. We both made mistakes in the beginning. I wasn’t as young as you were. But just like you, learning to manage a business. It has been a great experience. There is a line, where you can see how much Valle Inca has grown, and how much Red Fox has grown. And they are parallel. And truly I feel like you and I, we have grown together in this, but it’s not only Aleco at Red Fox, as you know better than anyone, with Ali, with Carina, managing everything there. We both have very strong teams, and having this partnership has been a great pleasure for me. I am more than happy, let me tell you.

Prudencio: Thank you, thank you Aleco, for all your trust, I want to celebrate your team, it is exceptional, and it is very important, there you have Carina, Ali, Aleco, some others that I know, Jajaira, who helps us so much, with our exports and more. We have to keep going forward, continue supporting the producers. Everyone, keep drinking Valle Inca coffee, Cusco coffee, and Peruvian coffee. Thank you!

Aleco: To you!

Ali: Thank you very much Prudencio. It’s always a pleasure talking to you, and I am very thankful for your trust, and for being here, and being able to share with everyone.

Prudencio: Of course, thank you.

Aleco: Ok Prudencio, I’ll see you soon, in June for sure.

Prudencio: Thank you, thank you!