Tucked away in the central Amazon region of Peru, just east of the Andean mountain range that runs through the center of the country, CAC Pangoa (Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Pangoa) has been serving its members since 1977. The coop has experienced a colorful history of good and hard tims. It was founded by 50 farmers from a coop in neighboring city, Satipo and grew to nearly 1700 members at its peak (in the early 1980s). With 3% of every sale, Pangoa was able to build most of the infrastructure that it uses to this day.

The coop is involved in the lives of its members beyond the purchasing and selling of their coffee. From promoting education to gender equality to better quality of life, Pangoa provides an exemplary model of Fair Trade. When the coop was first certified Fair Trade, it established two programs that continue serving members today: 1) the Educational Fund which allows members to borrow up to $2000 (US) to pay for their children's university fees and 2) the Health Services Fund offers members interest-free loans of up to $600 (US) to cover any medical attention they might need.

In 2008, Pangoa expanded its FT premium project list to include 5 more that cover tree renovation, improving their members' living standards, developing individual wet processing plants and sun setting over central drying patiodrying stations, and covering the funerary costs of any members. With these extra funding projects, Pangoa hopes to better and more broadly meet the needs of its members.

In addition to coffee, Pangoa has promoted economic diversification through cocoa production in lower elevations and honey cultivation. They export a couple containers of cacao per year and are working on improving quality and expanding their market. A roasted coffee project is fully underway with the objective of establishing a secondary source of income as well as develop a domestic appreciation for high quality (exportable) coffee to be consumed internally. In 2009, they began plans to develop a local ecotourism project to supplement incomes from coffee production.