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UPDATE: April 5
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazilian international student, Laura Rauscher, decided to leave her second home, Fresno, where she lived for three years. She said the situation was frightening and the decision to fly home was made overnight. Not being able to say goodbye to Fresno and friends who brought her amazing friendships, great teachers and opportunities, was a huge shock.
She says moving back to Santos, Brazil, again felt different; she forgot her native habits as she was used to the American culture. Her plan and hope is to continue to graduate with her friends and then return to Brazil. While COVID-19 turned the opportunity away from Fresno, her wish is to fly back to Fresno whenever this chaos ends to visit and possibly graduate in May.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: March 30
From humble beginnings to successful businessman, Edgard Rauscher, Jr., my father, is a testament of hard work, perseverance and a never give up attitude that now affects and benefits his whole family and my future career as an entrepreneur.
Coming from an extremely poor family, the well-known entrepreneur Edgard Rauscher, Filho (Filho is Portuguese for Jr.) used to spend his mornings selling bread in the streets of Curitiba, Brazil. Filho spent his childhood trying to sustain his family.
Edgard grew up depending his academic knowledge. When he was 15 years old, area schools became highly impressed with his dedication and high test scores.
As he turned 18, he decided to join the army at the Academia Militar Das Agulhas Negras in Resende, Rio De Janeiro. The current President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, also joined the same army academy.
Later in 1975, Rauscher Filho’s father, Edgard Rauscher, a German native, asked him to join 20 participants in a coffee tasting and classification contest. Only four contestants could receive a perfect score in the tasting competition and those four would be offered jobs.
Eventually, Edgard Filho was declared one of four finalists winners. Since then, he was offered a job at Intercontinental Cafe and ended his military career because he knew the coffee career would open more opportunities to him.
As a daughter of the founder of the Rauscher Commodities Traders, my father Edgard taught me and raised me with a perspective of the business world. He showed me that you must be ambitious, focused and work hard to achieve success.
While attending the Gulfood Conference with the Rauscher Commodities teams in Dubai, Laura Rauscher (third from right) spent part of a day developing a project with the Devolli Corporation in late February. The Rauscher Traders Instagram provides and bring to clients and others company events, the history and the path through their company.
While his success did not arrive quickly or easily, Edgard Filho continued pushing himself, and learned from his experiences and various opportunities. He continues to work hard and continue expanding, and allows me and my sister, Bruna Martinelli Rauscher, the opportunity to work alongside him, not as onlookers, but as active members of the business so we also can learn and grow our own interests in the coffee business.
Before he began working in coffee, Edgard Filho worked at the Intercontinental Cafe from 1975-1976, then moved to the Ouro Fino company where he worked from 1976-1980. At age 22, Edgard Filho decided to move to Santos, Brazil, where the biggest Latin America Port is located, and opened his own coffee company. Edgard already knew many successful clients who lived in Santos, his family gave him full support.
During this time, Filho was a student majoring as a criminal lawyer and in administration at Universidade Santa Cecília in Santos, Brazil.
He continued his studies, graduated university and continued his criminal law career for 30 years while his coffee interest developed into a full business.
Filho founded his first company, Rauscher Commodities, in 1982. Opening Rauscher Commodities Traders in 1986 was a risky move but with lots of ambition, courage, hard work and perseverance it resulted in eventually opening this opportunity for me
Now, Rauscher Commodities Traders works in agricultural commodity negotiations, acting between agro business merchants/producers and major brands available in the retail market. With over 36 years of experience, our team offers all the assistance needed for business relationships and continues looking forward for the best strategies and opportunities in order to practice the best market prices.
In 2010, Filho stopped working as a criminal lawyer and focused on his coffee business. He continues to be a lawyer, business administrator and entrepreneur in the commodities industry. Filho said it was actually very convenient for him to advocate as a criminal lawyer and also manage his coffee company.
In the following podcast, Senior Laura Rauscher shares her struggles going back to Brazil from America and her future goals after graduating.
According to Rauscher Traders, The Rauscher Traders commercial transactions are based on the market’s consultancy and in the crop statistics, in order to guarantee clients the best deals, with safety and credibility. Nowadays, Rauscher Commodities Traders also works with other commodities exportation, such as black pepper, popcorn, cardamon and soy.”
In order to guarantee coffee quality, Filho also works with companies that have international certifications, as well as a huge structure that can handle big transactions. Rauscher clients also have the best technology in the market to offer the greatest beans.
Rauscher Filho talks about his struggles with becoming a coffee broker.
“The hardest path of my career for me was the transaction of ending being a buyer and becoming a coffee broker,” Filho said. “You gotta work hard and believe in yourself.”
Rauscher Traders has dealt with coffee for three generations. Brazil and Germany are traditionally the heart of the coffee business, reflecting through our family, the true blood of the most consumed drink in the world.
In February 2020, I was able to experience the coffee world by going to the Gulfood Conference located in Dubai. There I meet successful and important business people. I was able to practice my business skills by making contracts and selling my coffee. This opened up my opportunities and my dream career of being an entrepreneur.
My sister, Bruna Martinelli Rauscher, is a family lawyer and in charge of exportations. She talks about expanding Rauscher Filho’s coffee worldwide.
“Our company currently exports coffee and pepper to 17 countries: England, Argentina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia, United Emirates, Egypt, Russia, Algeria, China, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Iran,” Bruna said. ”Expanding the coffee market has been such a big thing for our company name, we got to be well known by those 17 other countries and we are looking forward to making business with many others. ”
The company is still established in the city of Santos, Brazil, where the biggest Latin America port is located; it operates 80 percent of all coffee business markets in the whole country. The city was also the address, until the end of the 70s, of the Famous Coffee Stock Exchange, where exclusively was negotiated by all Brazilian coffee markets.
Working with my dad and my sister brought an excitement too see that working can be very fun when you do something you are passionate about. That’s why I decided through my senior year that I will attend a college in Brazil and I will also work in my dad’s company in the exportation area.
The role that I wish to become is the part of the trader by negotiating and selling the coffee in the exportation area. With this I will be majoring in international business administration and hopefully attending a private university in Santos, Brazil in the fall.
If readers have any questions or comments after reading this article, please reach out to Laura via the comment section below or her email.
For more articles, read COLUMN: Richie Cortez, seniors discuss adjustments to ‘shelter-in-place’ or EDITORIAL: Humanity’s altruism swells amidst COVID-19, social distancing.
Laura Rauscher can be reached via email.
Bryce Foshee • Apr 18, 2020 at 11:11 am
This is a really cool story!
Anna • Apr 6, 2020 at 6:40 pm
Laura, amazing article. You describe your history with passion and proud. Your father is really a great entrepreneur and you will be as well. You will learn a lot with him and in the University in Santos. You are already a successfully woman.
I am sure you are already also a great journalist. You wrote so many with such interesting subject and good English. Congratulations