Grupo Tristão

On February 23th, 1935, José Ribeiro Tristão opens a little grocery store in the town of Afonso Cláudio, in the countryside of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. He names it Casa Misael, after his father Misael Tristão. The store sold everything from food items to farming supplies, fabrics and haberdashery items.

At the same time, as both the state of Espírito Santo and the country tried to reverse the struggles that came with the Great Depression of 1929, José identified the great investment opportunity coffee would be. Thus, he decided to use it as currency in his establishment, betting it would become a way of expanding his business. And he was right, so that in the 1950s coffee became Casa Misael’s flagship business.

In 1960, already under management of Jônice Tristão, José Tristão’s son, the company expands its operations by exporting coffee, leading to the creation of the company José Ribeiro Tristão e Filhos. In the 1970s, the company divided itself into two separate entities: Tristão Companhia de Comércio Exterior and Triscafé Armazéns Gerais. In 1971, the instant coffee company Realcafé Solúvel do Brasil was established. In 1988, the companies pass onto the family’s third generation with the entry of Jônice Tristão’s children, and are consolidated as one of the most solid business groups in their home state, as well as one of the largest groups in the coffee industry worldwide: the Tristão Group, or Grupo Tristão, in Portuguese.