Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) has inaugurated its new coffee drying plant in the department of Lempira, Honduras. It is strategically located in the country’s western region, complementing LDC’s existing coffee threshing facility in Villanueva, near San Pedro Sula.
The new plant will enhance local origination and processing activities, facilitate logistics and improve services to producers and intermediaries in this key coffee-growing region and neighbouring areas.
“The addition of this site to our local operational network reflects LDC’s long-term commitment to Honduras over the past 13 years, as a strategic market for our coffee origination and processing activities,” says Juan José Blanchard, LDC’s Group COO and Head of Latin America.
“The new plant will enable us to expand our presence and bring us closer to producers in the region, thereby contributing to our ongoing efforts to drive product traceability from plantation to customers and consumers.”
Employing some 20 people, generating dozens of additional indirect jobs in nearby communities, and spanning an area of 1200 square metres, the new facility has a daily capacity to dry some 330 tonnes of parchment coffee. It is powered by three centrifuges and two ovens, fuelled by biomass using coffee husks from LDC’s Villanueva plant, contributing to its global efforts toward more sustainable operations.
The dried coffee is packaged using the advanced big bags storage system, for greater agility and safety during subsequent transportation to LDC’s Villanueva plant for processing, before export to various destinations worldwide.
“The new plant’s proximity to the country’s coffee plantations makes it an attractive alternative for local coffee growers, by giving them the possibility to market their coffee and access an excellent drying service, all in one place,” says Pablo Pereyra, LDC’s Head of Coffee for South and West Latin America.
“We look forward to further strengthening our partnership with local coffee growers, leveraging LDC’s 35 years of experience in coffee and 13 in Honduras.”
