Vava Coffee's founder is hoping to radically change the African coffee industry, reports Forbes. Vava Angwenyi started the Kenyan company to educate the country's farmers, get more women into the coffee industry, and engage East African youth to get them excited about Kenya's prized agricultural product. While the Arabica coffee farmed in Kenya is considered some of the best in the world, the problem is most Kenyans do not drink it, or get to drink it, says Angwenyi, as about 93 percent of the coffee produced in Kenya is exported.
In addition, while around 70 percent of coffee grown in Kenya is farmed by smallholder farmers, it's not the smallholder farmers who have the power or money. On average, smallholder coffee farmers in Kenya earn less than 35 percent of the international market value on their high-quality specialty coffees, Angwenyi says. In real terms, that works out to farmers earning less than a dollar a day. According to Angwenyi, this comes down to a lack of market access and information. To begin with, the majority of Kenyan coffee farmers have never even tasted their own product. To remedy this, Vava Coffee aims to create direct links between smallholder coffee farmers and markets that are looking to buy ethically sourced and traceable coffee, according to the report. Full Story
Related: Peace Coffee Acquired By CEO; Kroger to Offer More Fair Trade Certified Products.
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