African Fine Coffee Association (‘AFCA’) and The International Trade Centre (ITC) have come together to promote East African coffee to the global coffee market using an innovative online market place and business model developed by Bean Auction Ltd.
AFCA’s Taste of Harvest program is the leading regional cupping competition in Eastern and Southern Africa. It provides producers, millers, and exporters in AFCA member countries with a platform to showcase their coffee.
While the main purpose of Taste of Harvest is to identify, catalogue, and promote the region’s quality coffees, the program has a much broader impact on the development of the region’s coffee sector by facilitating linkages between African producers and international buyers and building capacity across the African coffee value chain.
The results of the competition were then published and buyers can approach the producers directly and make an offer to purchase this coffee.
For the past year AFCA has been searching for an auction system to help market African Specialty coffee globally. It is hoped that by advertising the coffee to a larger group of potential buyers they could get better prices.
The African Fine Coffees Association and the International Trade Centre have contracted Bean Auction Ltd. to provide an online solution for a specialty coffee auctions and an electric platform for African coffee. Bean Auction Ltd is leveraging IT, local partnerships and proven supply chain management techniques to ensure risk is always mitigated. This model fits with AFCA’s long term strategy.
The new Taste of Harvest competition will use the AFCA’s network of industry and local government connections to develop online specialty auctions that work for Africa.
Each country has a slightly different system with different legal and infrastructure constraints that need to be taken into consideration. Together we will leverage existing infrastructure in these countries to deliver measurable benefits to the coffee industry in Africa.
“This project will change the way the market perceives East African coffees and in doing so will generate higher prices for coffee producers. In turn, this will demonstrate to farmers that investing in improving quality results in better prices.” Samuel Kamau, CEO, African Fine Coffee Association
