Family History

Around the year 1890 a large group of immigrants arrived in Panama from multiple countries, a lot of them being contracted by the French investors to start the first attempt of building a Canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

One of them was named Abdeljad Suadi of Arab descent, who changed his name to the more easy to pronounce Domingo Suarez and was born on the Catholic side in Belen, Israel. He arrives in Panama City with his brother where he stays after the failed French intent of building the Canal and his brother moves to El Salvador, where they maintain the Suadi last name.

At the same time, a North American expeditionary that knew the Boquete region while traveling from the capital city David to the more northern province of Bocas del Toro on the Atlantic side kept telling stories praising the beauty of the region. There stories made it’s way to the ears of a lot of these immigrants and some of them moved to Boquete to see if they could find a better life. Among them is, of course, Domingo Suarez.

Once in Boquete, Domingo meets Doña Antonia Serrano, of Spanish origin and has several children: Eliseo, Delia, Amado, Juanita, Venancio y Vidal. Around 1920 coffee farming becomes a normal economic activity and Domingo starts a family business in the Alto Quiel area. The coffee produced in that region was already known to be of a very high quality, and was sold in the national market.

Around 1940, a green coffee buyer from the german company Rothfos, currently Neumann Group, arrives to Boquete from their Costa-rican office and convinces the local coffee producers to centralize the coffee picking activities – which results in giving up each farms’ cup identity. The family business was managed by the children after Domingo and Antonia’s passing, and the youngest Vidal Suarez and his spouse Eira Gutierrez separate their activities and purchase other properties. They in turn had six childen and initiated what today is a successful 270 hectares plantation located on the best micro-climate areas of Boquete.

Barú Indian High Brand

Around 1987 Vidal Suarez purchases a property to build a Beneficio processing plant and recuperates the farm’s cup identity for his plantation with a 2500 quintals of green coffee per year. At that time the administrative organization of Videira e Hijos already existed, and was composed of five coffee producer businesses. The Beneficio is built in the Dolega district and another business is created, Beneficios de Café de Boquete SA, which processes and exports cherry coffee from the producing farms. This new business also has a new partner, Ernesto Perez Balladares and spouse – who owns the Anselmito farm located in Jaramillo, Boquete.

This new business initiaties the exporting activities in 1989. The brand Baru Indian High is born, registered in Panama and USA. The management of the farms is shared between Norberto, Domingo and Carlos Ivan Suarez. Norberto also manages the administration of the Beneficio and the General Management of the business group.

The brothers, sharing the love for the coffee business passed on from their parents and with their commitment to hard work, maintain the family business and have become one of the largest coffee producers in Boquete and region, producing over 7000 quintals of green coffee per year, this being a high quality product thanks to the location of the farms, the attention to detail during the processing and the final preparation of the coffee before the export.

The growth and success experienced throughout the years is due to the enforcement of basic principles when managing the farms: maintaining the same coffee varieties that our parents started growing since the birth of the business, promoting a high degree of social commitment with our partners and employees, applying a sustainable agriculture that respects the environment and investing in technology to constantly develop the latest trends in farming. These paired up with the special micro-climate that Boquete brings, makes that at the end we can present you a product that is consistently the same – if not better – quality than the year before. This consistency provides our clients with an interesting volume and also a very attractive cup profile of the highest quality.

Other Initiatives

The Empresa Beneficios de Café de Boquete, S.A starts to collaborate with nacional organizations in 1992, such as the Asociacion Nacional de Beneficiadores y Exportadores de Café de Panama (ANBEC) with the goal of develop and improve the economic coffee activities in the country.

In 1995, Norberto Suarez is elected President of the board, and knowing the challenges that such a dynamic industry faces, and realizing that success lies in factors such as knowledge, innovation and strategic advantages, the association spearheaded several initiatives in the social and environmental fronts, the participation on specialty forums such as Ferias de Café Especial de Japon (SCAJ) and Europa (SCAE) and most recently in current leading edge topics such as precission agrigulture applied to coffee, denomination of origin, carbon capture and recent project – The Route of Coffee.