Reflecting on the New Year as We Continue Creating Change in 2026
by Aliisa Oake and Cecilia Díaz
As we close 2025 and anticipate another year of creating change in Guatemala's coffee growing communities, we’d like to dedicate time towards reflecting on the new year – emphasizing some of the strengths we’ve had in terms of organizational growth and briefly discussing some of the major changes we’ve witnessed in the coffee industry. In this article, we will be discussing some of the year’s highlights and how we’ve turned challenges into opportunities.
Major Changes in 2025
To start off reflecting on the new year, we’d like to share that we’ve had many strengths this past year, one of them being through the growth of our team and supporters, but we’ve also witnessed and experienced some challenges in the global coffee industry. With this, we’d like to share insights on some of the major changes that we faced during 2025.
The first change was a challenge that was felt drastically within De La Gente’s coffee community, along with many people involved in the coffee industry around the world – the fluctuations in the coffee industry. Soon after the start of 2025, in early February, there was a record market high for Arabica coffee futures as prices reached an all-time high of about $4.41 per pound of green coffee (unroasted). Prices reached a similar level again in September. This is drastically creating change in green coffee prices, due to supply chain disruptions in relation to climate change and tariffs in the U.S. – although consumer demand remained high throughout the year, and is predicted to continue to do so in the near future. For more information on arabica coffee bean pricing and the C market, visit our previous blog post - Pricing Arabica Coffee Beans: A Consumer’s Guide to the Coffee C Market.
Coffee cherries being harvested by Armando Ambrosio in San Marcos coffee-growing region
Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) has created many challenges in the way people are researching and discovering brands like De La Gente on the internet. Consumers are no longer using individual search engines for purchases and are moving between traditional searches, social media platforms, and AI assisted searches. This makes it difficult for brands to maintain a consistent presence through multiple platforms and for consumers to confidently know where to look for reliable information. As AI systems are increasingly powering the internet, it’s becoming more difficult, and also more important, for us to stand out and be discovered in a highly saturated industry in terms of being noticed and creating awareness of our mission and the main areas of our business such as specialty coffee sales, our Immersion Program, and our Community Tourism initiatives. In reflecting on the new year, we plan to adapt with AI, but will also maintain authentic connections with our audiences as we engage in meaningful interactions and spread knowledge of our work and Guatemala’s specialty coffee industry.
Overall, some of the global challenges in 2025 were driven by economic, political, and natural events – where obstacles and events have been interconnected and have created ripple effects on each other. People have been impacted in various ways, and we stand in solidarity with all those who have been affected in a negative way.
We’ve adapted to major shifts within the coffee industry, along with the broader challenges shaping the world around us. Although we have seen some major changes in the coffee industry and beyond, not everything has been doom and gloom. As we’ve been reflecting on the new year, the bigger picture has been this: as challenges present themselves, we’re able to come together and continue to persevere. With every challenge we have faced in 2025, we were able to see a new opportunity, opening the doors for the start of something new as we continue working towards achieving our goals – the main goal being to further our mission of creating economic opportunities for coffee producing communities in Guatemala. Even though the world is constantly changing, we’ve seen organizational growth within all of our programs – giving light to what’s to come in 2026.
Furthering Community Growth — Changes in Our Cooperative Assistance Program
Doña Rosa standing with a de-pulper machine donated to the Women Caficultora Network
In continuing our efforts through our Cooperative Assistance program, we’ve furthered creating change in the lives of those who are members of our partner coffee cooperatives located in some of Guatemala’s coffee-growing regions. To start, we welcomed Axel Muralles to our team as De La Gente’s Development Manager. Axel has been a crucial member of our organization as he created connections with our generous network of contributors who believe in and trust in our mission – playing a meaningful role in advancing our organizational growth. Every contribution to our organization helps us to continue investing in ongoing improvement of the individual and collective abilities of our partner cooperatives and further our operations to continue creating change.
As we continue reflecting on the new year, we’re excited to share some of the projects from 2025 that we have planned and implemented in conjunction with our partner cooperatives.
We’ve acquired seven new recurring donations from individuals who subscribed to donate an amount of their desire on a monthly basis
Four of our Green Coffee buyers joined us in our efforts by hosting fundraisers, where with every cup of coffee or every bag of coffee sold, a percentage was donated to our cause
We received multiple grants that were used to buy coffee processing machinery (six depulper machines) and also fund a quality control training to the coffee producers who are members of the Women Caficultora Network
Creating Change in Coffee Communities Through Our Coffee Commercialization Program
Here’s a look at the impact of our Coffee Commercialization Program as we continue reflecting on the new year. Marcela Méndez, who has already been working with us since 2023, assumed the role of the Coffee Commercialization Program Manager as we welcomed Wilfred Toledo to our team as the Coffee Sales and Customer Support Coordinator. Their collaborative efforts have played a key role in maintaining and expanding customer relationships, building new opportunities, and coordinating logistics with care and efficiency.
Within this area of our organization, we’ve been able to overcome some of the obstacles in the coffee industry that emerged in 2025 – one of them being the challenges due to the fluctuations in the coffee market. In overcoming this, we’ve reiterated our commitment to continue selling coffee from our partner cooperatives and providing market access for small-scale coffee producers while delivering high quality, specialty coffee to roasters and consumers.
Our roasted coffee journey has been one marked by meaningful growth and an expanding coffee community.
This year, we sold more than 13,000 pounds of roasted coffee through our Online Store, our coffee subscription program, and wholesale roasted coffee accounts.
We acquired 15 new wholesale accounts, creating a total of 40 wholesale coffee buyers who are crucial to the impact we’re able to generate through roasted coffee sales
More specifically, coffee from the Women Caficultora Network made its debut to our online shop in March of 2025 as we celebrated International Women’s Day – which was an incredible success and acceptance, as we were able to sell 482.75 pounds of roasted coffee that month
Bags of roasted coffee from the Women Caficultora Network
Furthering Our Impact Through Community Tourism
Investing in Guatemala’s coffee communities has been central to our mission. Through the continued growth of local tourism in Guatemala, we helped generate economic opportunities for coffee growing communities, small-scale producers, and their families.
By reflecting on the new year, as well as previous years of impact in our Community Tourism Program, we’re reminded of how important this program has been in educating visitors about the side of coffee that typically goes unnoticed, including all of the steps involved in coffee cultivation from bean to cup. We’ve welcomed visitors from around the world, which has been very exciting for us as we see people become more aware of the hard work involved in coffee production as they visit the small-scale coffee producing community, San Miguel Escobar, located in the Antigua coffee growing region of Guatemala.
Over the years, we’ve made a positive impact by raising more awareness about different aspects of the coffee industry and the value of coffee producers in shaping the future of coffee. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve hosted more than 4,000 visitors in 2025! We’ve received incredible feedback from our participants.
“De La Gente is an Antigua must!
If you’re going to do a coffee tour, you should certainly do it with De La Gente. Their organizational mission is one that should resonate with anyone who loves coffee and wants to ensure that producers are adequately compensated for making our mornings great. It was really awesome to meet with Elisandro and his family, and see what part of their life looks like. They made us the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life and were so happy to have us in their home and on their farm.
We will definitely be doing it again when [we are in] Antigua next!”
~ Pete S through Tripadvisor
Coffee producer, Ingrid, explaining details about coffee cultivation during coffee tour
Additionally, with the expansion of our Community Tourism program and the increase of participants in our activities, we’ve welcomed three new interpreters to our team. Interpreters make all the difference in the level of impact in our tours, as they play an essential role in bridging cultures of visitors and the community members of our partner cooperative, the Coffee Growers of San Miguel Escobar. The hosts of our coffee tours and cooking classes generously share their stories, skills, and traditions. Interpreters make genuine cultural exchange possible as well as ensuring that they are truly understood and respected by visitors.
Additions to Our Immersion Program and Our Organizational Growth
2025 has been a year marked by a growing interest in authentic travel experiences, which has been reflected in an increase of tourism rates in Guatemala according to INGUAT (National Tourism Institute in Guatemala). As we’re reflecting on the new year with tourism rates, we’ve had more groups participate in our different trips organized through our Immersion Program. In regards to this, we also welcomed Pete Brugger to the team as our Immersion Program Manager. He has been doing an excellent job fulfilling this role, while bringing his new abilities and knowledge to his work – making every trip a unique experience for participants to learn about our partner cooperatives and details about Guatemala’s history and culture over the course of seven days for each trip we host.
This year, we welcomed a total of 116 participants as we were thrilled to have hosted seven Educational Trips and three Origin Trips. In these groups, 21 participants were teens between the ages 13 and 15 years old. We are honored to be able to host people from all backgrounds and ages and to hear about their eagerness to learn more about and spread the word about Guatemalan culture, history, and coffee landscape. With every trip, our goal has remained the same – for participants to return home with a deeper understanding of coffee and the importance of making more informed, ethical choices as consumers.
Group of students from Wisconsin Eau-Claire University during the Educational Trip
Last but not least, to close off reflecting on the new year with a final aspect of our organizational growth at De La Gente. We were excited to welcome Aliisa Oake to our team at the start of the year to take on the new role as our Marketing and Content Coordinator. She brought her creativity skills and passion to the team – connecting with our audiences through social media, crafting compelling stories, and creating educational videos. Her work has been crucial in raising awareness about our work and has played a meaningful role in contributing to our growth.
A Moment of Gratitude as 2025 Comes to an End
As 2025 comes to an end, we – coffee producers and De La Gente staff – want to express gratitude to our supporters for believing in our work. We are deeply grateful for your support in spreading awareness of our work and standing with us throughout the year. With your continued encouragement, we look forward to building an even more equitable and inclusive coffee industry for everyone involved. We promise to keep you updated with every aspect of our work and we will be sharing impact numbers so you can see the full extent of how you have positively impacted the coffee growing communities that we work with.
Our growing team at De La Gente!
If you’d like to become a donor and a part of our mission as we continue creating positive change in the lives for coffee farming families and communities in Guatemala, we would be incredibly grateful for your support. You can make a single-contribution, become a recurring donor, do a fundraiser in your local community, or connect us with other organizations or foundations who offer grants!
Visit our “Donate” page to learn more or get in contact with our Development Manager at axel@dlgcoffee.org
