In 2003 Marcelo Morita was a young agronomist who showed a knack for improving quality, and incredible organizational skills. He was approached by 7 of his neighbors and asked to become the CEO of a partnership that would become known as ‘The G8 Group’. These are the first settlers in the São Gotardo region in the 1970s; they are Mr. Akio Tamekuni, Mr. Hisashi Tamekuni, Mr. Massato Sakuma, Mr. Shigueo Shimada, Mr. Takayuki Tamekuni, Mr. Yoshifumi Tanaka and Mr. Yukio Nakamura.
At first, their main goal was focusing on garlic production, but in 2019 they moved into coffee by purchasing an award-winning coffee farm – Fazenda Triunfo, near the city of Pratinha. This farm was considered by many in the area to be a meeting of greats; Marcelo’s management with a pedigreed plot.
Nowadays, the group has grown and some of the sons and daughters of the first partners are the new business associates together with new people that joined the group. They are Celio Tamekuni, Eduardo Tamekuni, Elisabete Sakuma, Fabio Sakuma, Gian Yoshiaki Tanaka, Helio Nakamura, Hisashi Tamekuni, Juliana Roberta Morita and Marcio Tamekuni. With this new generation comes a new interest in the future of coffee, including an intense interest in the interplay between varietals, fermentation and drying.