Brazil's Largest Coffee Cooperative, Responsible For 10% Of Brazil's Coffee Exports, Linked To 5 New Cases Of Slave Labor During 2025 Harvest – CoffeeTalk

Brazil’s largest coffee cooperative, Cooxupé, has suspended five growers caught using slave labor during the 2025 harvest. The five are among 15 coffee producers fined for the practice during inspections carried out by Brazil’s Ministry of Labor and Employment between April and August. In all five cases, labor inspectors from Brazil’s Ministry of Labor found workers subjected to degrading working and living conditions and restrictions on their freedom due to illegal debts, two of the four criteria that, under Brazilian law, define conditions analogous to slavery.

Cooxupé recorded the highest revenue in its history in 2024, with 6.6 million coffee bags it received, 80% of which were exported. The cooperative ranks among Forbes’ 100 largest agribusiness companies in Brazil and supplies industry giants such as Starbucks, identified as one of the cooperative’s main clients. Jorge Ferreira dos Santos, coordinator of Adere-MG, an organization that fields labor-rights complaints and alerts authorities, said that between 20% and 40% of the slave-labor cases they handle involve Cooxupé growers.

Cooxupé blocks any member as soon as it receives official notice of labor-rights violations, halts delivery of their coffee, segregates beans already received, and returns them in full. The cooperative says it bases its operations on respect for people, the dignity of work, and social responsibility and runs a human-rights training program. Starbucks, contacted for comment, said it buys coffee from only “a small fraction” of Cooxupé’s more than 19,000 member farms and only from those verified through its C.A.F.E. Practices program, which it described as including “robust audits.” The company did not clarify whether the farms caught using slave labor were or had been part of the program but stressed it takes “any allegation of inadequate working conditions extremely seriously” and is committed to responsible coffee sourcing.

On June 24, 19 workers who had left Ceará, Brazil’s Northeast, to harvest coffee were rescued at Fazenda São Thomaz in Caconde, São Paulo. The property belongs to coffee grower André Pereira Alves, also a member of the Cooxupé cooperative. In Mauriti, they were recruited with promises of good working conditions and wages by a “gato,” the popular term for labor brokers in the countryside. According to the inspection report obtained by Repórter Brasil, the cost of the trip was paid by the workers themselves, which violates Brazilian labor law.

The indebtedness, false promises, and irregular transport of workers are some of the hallmarks of human trafficking for labor exploitation. André Alves responded through his lawyer that “he understands that the situation experienced by the workers does not fit the definition of conditions analogous to slavery” because “the workers were being paid amounts well above what most Brazilians receive” and that “they had a car available for transportation.” He also noted that, even without agreeing with the classification of slave labor, he complied with all the requirements established by the labor inspectors.

On June 26, two other properties in Minas Gerais were caught using slave labor. In Divisa Nova, a group of 47 workers was rescued, including a 16-year-old teenager. They were harvesting coffee at Fazenda do Meio, owned by producer Nilceu Patrocínio Muniz Junior. The record of the slave-labor inspection shows that the group was paid with checks that could only be cashed at a supermarket indicated by the “gato” himself. According to the inspection document, this prevented the workers “from freely disposing of their wages.”

In the municipality of Passos, Minas Gerais, inspectors found a 72-year-old man and ten other workers subjected to conditions analogous to slavery at Fazenda Engenho Novo. Of the 6.6 million bags of coffee received by Cooxupé in 2024, 80% were destined for customers abroad.

This is not the first time that Cooxupé, responsible for 10% of Brazil’s coffee exports, has been linked to cases of slave labor in its supply chain. In April, Repórter Brasil reported that four of its members had been included in the federal government’s Registry of Employers who have subjected workers to conditions analogous to slavery, known as the “Dirty List” of slave labor.

Read More @ Repórter Brasil