Small Coffee Companies and the Impact of Geographical Indications as Productive Innovation in Mexico in the New Reality

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) as a factor of innovation in the Coffee Pluma geographical region in Oaxaca, Mexico, a vital tool to solve the problem of the actual crisis in the chain and for the new context of business and markets in the post-COVID 19 era due to the need for new marketing methods. Two case studies are presented under the Global Value Chain (GVC) methodology proposed by Gereffi et al. (1994, 2005, 2018) with a contribution from the conceptual framework of Geographical Indications (GI) used by Belletti et al. (2017) to analyze the PDO as an innovation. The first are small-size producers and the second are medium-size producers, both considered as small companies by the number of people employed. Even on a small scale, the coffee sector, through the appellation of origin, has the potential to generate economic benefits in the place of origin by promoting the development of two other economic sectors such as tourism and retail marketing. Likewise, it gives a comprehensive answer considering the business economic field and incorporating, as required by the current reality, other capitals such as social, cultural and environmental. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the benefits that coffee sector, will obtain and generate through this sectorial and territorial development tool, considering that the G.I. emerges as an option to improve production by acquiring the exclusivity of producing coffee within that region to achieve sustainable development faced with the new reality.