What is your position in the coffee industry?

coffee enthusiast, industry professional, consultant

Where are you located? ( City and Country )

Phillipsburg, NJ

How many years have you been in the industry?

25

Tell us more about your coffee shop or barista skills.

I've been involved with fincas/coffee growers since being a child. I have developed an educational curricula for the coffee aficionado. I provide a coffee cupping experience that teaches the average coffee aficionado about the differences of aromas, taste ans characteristics of the varioust type of specialty coffee that exist.

What cities or countries are you interested in traveling to?

all

About Me:

Fundraising, education, and social justice are part of Marcela’s upbringing. When she was a child in Mexico, thanks to the power of Marcela’s mother’s example, she was involved in the American Red Cross children’s fundraising drive, and the UNICEF greeting card operation together with many other cultural fundraising efforts in support of UNICEF in Mexico.
As a young adult, while attending University in Mexico, Marcela became a member of the Student Board, Asúa-Asociación de Alumnos, Universidad Anahuac, and México. During her tenure there, Marcela created and established educational programs that helped underprivileged children throughout Mexico to improve their education. Marcela led many field trips to urban and rural areas to implement these programs. Marcela taught math, reading, and writing to adults and children in urban marginal areas and led trips to remote areas in Mexican Indian and coffee growing communities to introduce water filtration, sanitation programs, reading, math, and culture.

When Marcela graduated from college, working as a mathematician and an actuary, she continued to be drawn to her desire to contribute to social justice. Today, she continues to hold these ideals. Marcela is passionate about providing equal opportunities to all beings on this planet.

In the 80s, while in Cleveland, Ohio, Marcela was the leader and organizer of a unique program in support of the Mixe Indians from Oaxaca, Mexico. The National Institute for the Indians in Mexico (INI) in partnership with UNICEF hired Marcela to single-handedly organize a campaign to raise funds in the USA for musical instruments. This program became one of the INI’s most beloved campaigns. Marcela had no resources to run such a program out of the Cleveland area. She managed to rally and secured funding, volunteers, in-kind donations, and was able to exceed all expectations in all areas. So now, as a result of her efforts together with hundreds of volunteers she recruited, in the mountains of Mexico, in the Oaxaca region, the Mixe Indians have an excellent music conservatory. For this unique society, music is the highest degree of achievement. During the XV century, Spanish missionaries went up to those remote mountains and introduced the Mixes to the Western type of musical instruments. Since then, the Mixe Indians have devoted themselves to playing their own ancient autochthonous music.

In order to effectively run this program, Marcela convinced the Quakers at the “Peace House” in Cleveland to donate their office space and office resources in support of the Mixe Project to raise dollars for and donations of musical instruments. She was now working in an environment that was committed to promote the work of Cesar Chavez. Marcela managed to accomplished all she was hired to do by UNICEF and, at the same time, volunteered with the “Friends=Quakers” to further their mission of helping Latino rights, such as those of farmers in the USA.

During this time, Marcela was introduced to AFS, the American Field Service, whose mission is to promote peace through cultural understanding. After completing the Mixe project, Marcela organized a music tour for the Mixe Children’s Indian Band (35 kids ranging from 4 to 18 years old to four cities in the USA). With the support of AFS, Marcela conceptualized, obtained, and managed all logistics, media relations, and funding for this Mexican/American tour.

One project led to another, Marcela has been involved as a professional and/or a volunteer with AFS for the last 20 years.

During the next two decades, Marcela was able to learn and acquire important skills as a fundraiser and as a manager. Marcela also developed skills as an advocate. As an owner of her own Artist Management firm she I honed skills in outsourcing, branding, negotiating contracts with various governments, and managing an international portfolio of artists. During that time at the Evaristo Valle Museum in Asturias, Spain, she built their entire educational curricula and founded a concert series that today continues to be a very successful initiative for the Museum.

While at the Florida West Coast Symphony, Marcela was responsible for building its $25 million endowment from scratch and during her tenure there, all grant proposals submitted to the Cultural Department of State in Florida, were not only awarded, but also the Florida West Coast Symphony received the highest ranking as the number one music organization in the entire state. Marcela quotes: “I must say: all these accomplishments would not have been accomplished if I hadn’t had the opportunity and passion for working with winning organizations.”

Marcela joined AFS again in 2000 as their National Director of Development. During her tenure with them (almost 4 years), her major accomplishments included:

• Successfully implemented a new fundraising model and raised from $1.4 to $11 million annually. (Personally raised $950,000 in 2003).
• Conceptualized and created special events, including galas, study trips, board and major donor events.
• Created high-profile Alumni Council responsible for overseeing an alumni body of 120,000. Council created high visibility events, which included a panel of celebrities at the United Nations lecturing on Multilateralism and Peace.
• Conceptualized and stewarded an Emeritus Society for former board members.
• Introduced the concept of fundraising to the AFS culture supported by educational orientation packets for new board members. Identified and cultivated future board members; facilitated fundraising (resource raising) board meetings.
• Created a structure for fundraising partnerships with other not-for-profit organizations. For example, partnered with Summer Search (another NGO) that now is sending high school students abroad through AFS-USA.
• Created international partnerships with 50 AFS offices abroad.
• Oversaw and mentored 22 staff members. Taught one of her direct reports to write winning grant proposals. In 2003, AFS received more than $1 million from private foundations and almost $5 million from government support.
• In 2001, Marcela conceptualized and created a corporate relations program from scratch that is now raising more than $500,000 annually.

At the end of 2004 Marcela created a new mission driven company in the specialty coffee industry, Jalima Coffee. Jalima Coffee works with ecological and other not-for-profit organizations. For the past three years, Marcela has been the Chief Marketing Officer and CFO of Jalima Coffee. Marcela built a brand and placed their products in over 250 specialty stores in the USA, such as Zabar's in NYC, Kings Supermarkets in NJ, Whole Foods Market in the Mid Atlantic Region, Richard's Whole Foods in FL, and many more.

Marcela has developed strategic alliances with several NGOs, built the entire content of their website, created all marketing and PR campaigns as well as all financial aspects of the company. For the past three years, Marcela has been the Keynote speaker at the Coffee and Tea Festival in New York City. Marcela has been interviewed for an entire hour at the Martha Stewart Show on Sirius Satellite Radio; has been featured on CNN in Español and on the program Unwrapped on the TV Food Network. Her company has also been showcased on various newspapers and magazines across the USA. On December 2006, Jalima Coffee was selected as one of Rachael's Ray favorite picks on her website and magazine.

Today Marcela continues promoting her company, sustainable, ecological and educational coffee projects and is a consultant for Demeter’s Pantry LLC, a Greek specialty food company in the US base in MD and NJ.

About My Company:

How we got started…

Marcela Zuchovicki invited her dearest friends, Libe and Janet, to Mexico to celebrate a special birthday and her recovery from a battle with breast cancer. There was no agenda other than to rejoice in friendship, sand, surf and the occasional Margarita among lifelong “amigas”, as they say in Mexico. But something was brewing. Three women and lifelong friends, each professionally successful and all at a crossroad looking for a new challenge. A business idea was launched to start a specialty coffee venture to capture the most delicious flavors in the world: high altitude, organically grown coffee, bird friendly from the cloud forests of Mexico and to build a company committed to bio-diversity: social responsibility, economic sustainability and support of preservation of ecological projects and the environment.

What we have done…

Since August of 2005, the Jalimas (Janet, Libe and Marcela) have placed their line of exceptional 100% Arabica specialty coffees in approximately 250 specialty stores and gourmet food markets throughout Northeast, Florida, and the Mid Atlantic region of the USA with plans for expansion nationally from coast to coast. Jalima Coffee products can be found in some of New York and New Jersey’s most renowned gourmet food destinations such as Zabar’s, Georgia’s Bake Shop, 26 King’s Super Markets in NJ, some of the Whole Foods Markets in VA, MD, DC, OH, and others. Quite an impressive start for the new kid on the block. A website and internet catalogue was also launched in 2005 making Jalima Coffee available anywhere in the U.S. and beyond. Through the company’s website, Jalima Coffee is also sold to members of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities at over 400 member campuses and their students, faculty, staff and alumni in the US. In addition, Jalima Coffee has been available since 2006 at www.amazon.com.

What are our plans for the future…

Well, to compete with the big guys, naturally. No small order but these three women entrepreneurs will accept nothing less. Their focus these days is on building brand awareness, loyalty and expansion of their products, origins and distribution network regionally in the northeast and nationally. Making Jalima Coffee a household name in the competitive specialty coffee industry will take unyielding belief in their product, their mission and themselve

What is your favorite thing about the coffee industry?

From beginning to end, the coffee farming, production and processing is a labor of love for many involved in the specialty coffee industry. Creating this beverage that is such an integral part of our daily lives and social interactions.

Website:

http://www.jalimacoffee.com