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An industry’s birth and evolution  |
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Two styles of cities were rapidly mixing into one in Maracaibo in 1926, a city that only barely had 50,000 inhabitants. Two realities were joining to conform the new city: on one part, the one of the terrace of the Club del Comercio at the Plaza Baralt with its group of Germans, all dressed in white and sitting in oval form according to hierarchy, who were heads of successful businesses that since 1890 had monopolized the exportation of coffee from The Andes and Santander to Europe. At that moment, after loosing the supremacy of coffee in the national economy and with a drastic reduction of its exportations, they were agonizing and retiring. And on the other hand, the dazzling city that was growing into the administrative center of the oil activity that was transforming it from being a rural area. Between both styles, and especially under the impulse of the second setting, the city had changed. Its urban landscape that previously was one of beasts and electric trams and “burros” and carts, was now filling up with new automobiles. The previously simple social and economic structure, those who had the power of arms and money and those who had nothing, had turned the city into a complex system of sophisticated networks that included people who controlled technology and a rising middle class that diversified business and liberal tasks, nurturing a growing official bureaucracy. And while Maracaibo’s high society languished with the fashions of King Tut, the fishermen complained to Governor Perez Soto because of the reduction of their fish due to the entrance of salt water into the Lake that was caused by the ballast of the oil ships returning from Curacao. In that city that was rapidly becoming one, some people read with anguish in the newspaper “El Excelsior” owned by the Criollo brothers, the latest news about the coffee market in the magazine that Breuer, Möller & Cia Sucs. regularly printed, where it informed that the international price of coffee had a decreasing tendency and that the buyers of the North preferred Brazilian coffee. The latter was due to “better beneficial qualities and a more solid grain” in comparison to coffee from the Andes. Others were astonished at the news but were not depressed because they had a dream and a project that was about to be fulfilled, and the information they read was not about to discourage them. We are speaking of Armando Capriles who had the vocation of an entrepreneur, as well as his nephew, Fernando Mendes Chumaceiro, a young clerk and accountant who had been born in Curacao in 1899. At the early age of 27 years, he took charge of the modest company as an industrial partner. Fernando, who reduced his name to Fernando M. Chumaceiro, together with his brother Ernesto and Edgardo who joined them two years later, dedicated himself to mount the three small toasters holding a sack each in a small location in the El Palacio property in the pasture grounds of El Milagro. From there they would go to the center of town to offer, house by house, their American type coffee. Some American technicians of the oil industry, anxious to drink good coffee, had urged them to establish the company and those were the fruits of their efforts. The coffee grains, produced in Andean lands, were purchased from the distributing companies that operated in the city, and were ground and toasted with wood in brick ovens. That July 24, 1926, when the first supply of Café Imperial was launched into the market, was the date for the beginning of the company’s feat that years later would be closely associated to the industrial progress of Maracaibo. At the beginning the company was very modest. It only had four employees. Fernando was the head of sales and Ernesto was in charge of the plant. Little by little, they convinced people of the excellence of their coffee. Sales grew and the original location became small. In 1928 they moved to a location on Ciencias Street, close to the tram station. There they introduced changes, especially regarding the presentation of the product. The first packing used was sacks and tins, and they were substituted by packages weighing half a kilo that were more commercial among the general public. Besides, they understood the value of publicity and the Imperial brand became popular with its red and yellow colors, and the first publicity slogan of the company was created: “Café Imperial, the emperor of Venezuelan coffees”. Wholesales were effected in twenty kilo drums and retail sales in small packages. A retail sales spot was opened in the center of the city called “Cafetería Imperial”, that operated together with a small wholesale store of imported foods. During those years the product’s sales expanded to Cabimas. Don Fernando himself traveled there in spite of the discomforts of the trip in the small boats that sailed from town to town on the Lake, visiting the oil fields. In 1935 the company was strong and changes continued, something that has been a constant aspect of the company since its beginning. Don Fernando purchased the coffee business from his Uncle Armando, his partner, and Jose Manuel López joined the company, later becoming one of its great bastions as he worked with much zeal towards the company’s growth. That year another slogan appeared for the company, and this slogan continues identifying Café Imperial throughout the country and abroad: “Quality proven in the cup”. The factory expanded and two modern French toasters were added to the three original ones. An aggressive sales plan surpassed the state’s limits, and the product was introduced to the states of Falcón, Trujillo, Mérida and Táchira. The company that had surpassed its boundaries due to its rapid growth was forced to progress constantly, and it moved to its third location, the Villaflor property on the Avenida 5 de Julio, in a garage made of zinc painted red which was located in front of what used to be the Hotel Detroit. The company’s continuous expansion and its obsession to seek excellence made it more avid in obtaining first quality raw material. At the time raw material purchased was the one that came from the highlands of the Andes where the Arabic style coffee was produced under shade and benefited greatly with the damp method, which guaranteed a better quality of the green grain, packed in hemp sacks. To assure this supply and to make it regular, Imperial established close business relationships in 1938 with Riboli, Abbo & Cia, one of the main businesses that commercialized coffee in Venezuela. This association with expert connoisseurs of the business that had branches in the main producing zones gave the company a renewed impulse. This made Café Imperial’s management to start one of the main phases of the business: the selection of first quality grains to guarantee a product of excellence and it got more and more involved in the coffee activity in all its stages. World War II broke out in 1939 and a great scarcity of products of all types occurred in the surrounding markets. This occasion was profited by Café Imperial which began to timidly venture into the markets of Aruba and Curacao. In 1948 Café Imperial became a corporation. It had eleven shareholders and its composition clearly evidenced the nature of a family company and its preoccupation to make its employees participants of its successes. The company finally built its first own location at Santa Rosalia, near the Puente España and in front of the Free Market, and put an end to the sort of a nomad situation that moved it from one side of the city to another. The new building was equipped with modern toasters, more perfect mills and automatic coffee packing machines. Its ascension was uncontrollable. But there were problems in the new location because the neighbors complained that the plant’s smoke contaminated the air. Café Imperial adopted the method of “burning the smoke in the chimneys”, and establishing that procedure for the first time in the country, a milestone that speaks much of its environmental concerns and of its respect for the community where it is located. On March 30, 1952, the company grew with an important contribution in capital by the company Tito Abbo Jr. & Hnos. Its capital was incremented to Bs. 2,200,000, divided into 2200 shares with a value of Bs. 1000 each. Innovations proceeded in 1954 when the vacuum packing system was introduced. In 1960 the new plant located in the main avenue of La Pomona was built, and its capital stock was raised to Four Million Bolivares. In 1961 Imperial produced instant coffee for the first time which made it a pioneer in that field in the country. Besides those technological improvements, the company began a series of activities to improve its workers’ welfare: it established in 1959 a Savings Bank for its personnel; it created a Housing Plan for its workers. It also began a program of free medical attention for its employees and workers, and started a scholarship program for the children and family of its workers and for the most outstanding young people in the community that, by 1966, had benefited two graduates in superior studies. It established an insurance fund that protects its workers in cases of total incapacity and their families in case of death, and undertakes a short-term loan plan at low interest rates that allows its workers to take care of their most urgent needs. In the 80s the company made its installations even more modern, introducing modern packing and crating machines. The presentation of the product was diversified so as to better care for the different tastes and possibilities of the consume r. Presently there are packages of 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000 grams, glass containers of 50, 100 and 150 grams and vacuum-sealed tins of 400 and 800 grams. In 1990 Imperial was awarded the Norven quality brand as a recognition to its great efforts to manufacture first quality coffee with raw material rigorously selected and demanding quality controls applied to all phases of the product’s manufacture. Its slogan “Quality proven in the cup” was the test of fire of excellence. This excellent quality in the cup, pride of the company, is the result of a rigorous mixture of different qualities of green coffee, of careful baking procedures and in the grinding of the beans, of adequate vacuum conservation and of a jealous control in the distribution of the product that guarantees its freshness. These circumstances have taken it to be a pioneer in the agricultural coffee industry in areas such as automatizing, the use of tin plate in packing, the application of vacuum-seals in the tin can and in its paper package and finally, in the processing of instant coffee in Venezuela. In 1926, seventy years ago, Don Fernando had a beautiful dream that work, constancy, passion and a sense of responsibility turned into a reality, and he became an enduring example of the working qualities of the people of Zulia, the pride of the country. Presently, Don Fernando’s children and grandchildren continue his legacy. |
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 Maracaibo, Baralt Plaza, MacGregor corner, 1923.  Armando Capriles Myerston Fernando M Chumaceiro Capriles and Fernando Chumaceiro Chiarelli.  Head office of Cafetería Imperial on Comercio Street.     Commercial advertisement of Café Imperial in a television program, 1953. In it are Amalia Pérez Díaz, María Teresa Acosta and Efraín de la Cerda.  Café Imperial, pioneer of the automatization of the coffee industry.  "Quality proven in the cup" received the Norven Quality Seal in 1990. |
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