The Last Sample Before Export, Santos
The Disappearing Ensaccador
In the old days it was the custom every morning for the ensaccadores, or baggers, and the exporters or their brokers, to visit the commisarios' warehouses and to bargain for lots of coffee made up by the commisario.
In the Santos market, until recent years, the ensaccador, or coffee-bagger, often stood between the commisario and exporter. When American importing houses began to establish their own buying offices in the Brazilian ports (about 1910) to deal direct with the fazendeiro and the commisario, the gradual elimination of the ensaccador was begun. Today he has entirely disappeared from the Santos market, and is disappearing from Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Victoria.
Coffee reaches Santos in a mixed condition; that is, it has not been graded, or separated according to its various qualities. This is the work of the commisario, who puts each shipment into "lots" in new "official" bags, each of which bears a mark stating that the contents are São Paulo growth. If the coffee is offered for sale by the owner, the commisario will then put it on the "street," the section of Santos given over to coffee trading.
Stamping Bags for Export, Santos
The commisario works with samples of the coffee he has to offer and only puts out one set at a time. He names his "asking" price, known locally as the pedido, which is the maximum rate he expects to get, but seldom receives. A set of samples may be shown to twenty-five or thirty exporting houses in a day, one at a time. When the sample is in the hands of a firm for consideration, no other exporter has the right to buy the lot even at the pedido price, and the commisario can not accept other offers until he has refused the bid. On the other hand, if a house refuses to give up the samples, it is understood that it is willing to pay the pedido price. The firm first offering a price acceptable to the commisario's broker gets the lot, even though other houses have offered the same price.
When a lot is sold, the samples are turned over to the successful bidder, and he then asks the commisario for larger samples for comparison with the first set.