RWASHOSCCO: Promoting Rwanda’s Speciality Coffee

RWASHOSCCO:

Promoting Rwanda’s Speciality Coffee

angelique Karekezi T o promote speciality coffee six farmer cooperatives in 2005 formed the Rwanda Small Holder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO Ltd) that would help improve the value chain and market Rwanda’s speciality coffee on the international market.

The farmer-owned coffee roasting, marketing and export company was charged with providing key services to the six (6) cooperatives which are spread across the country that include; Abahuzamugambi ba Kawa/Maraba (Huye), BUFCOFFEE (Nyamagabe), COCAGI Gashonga (Rusizi), COCAHU Humure (Eastern Province), Dukundekawa Musasa (Northern Province) and KOAKAKA (Nyamagabe and Huye).

The company was created towards the end of a USAID funded project that aimed at aiding local coffee producers to process and setup coffee washing stations. Although the project helped in bringing together farmers into the cooperatives it lacked sustainability due to cooperatives total dependency on grants, yet coffee was fetching good revenues for the farmers.

Angelique Karekezi, the Managing Director of RWASHOSCCO observes that her company helps the cooperatives to market, advertise and take coffee to international markets. This ensures that the cooperatives can harvest, process and add value to deliver a final product to the market.

The company does not buy coffee from member cooperatives to re-sell but links cooperatives to foreign roasters or buyers. As a company, its fully owned by cooperatives which pays a fee per kilogramme of coffee that passes through the company to cover its operating costs.

The Brand ‘Café de Maraba’

The brand name originates from Maraba in the southern Rwanda, the area that first owned a washing station which also attracted other coffee farmers to visit and train in coffee processing. As the first speciality producers of coffee and among the founders of RWASHOSCCO, the brand Café de Maraba’ was selected to market the company’s products.

The Managing Director of the company explains that Maraba coffee was marketed internationally to show the speciality coffee produced in Rwanda, this encouraged the adoption of its popular name on the international coffee market. RWASHOSCCO specializes in high quality specialty coffee and this is achieved by empowering farmers with trainings, improving the processes and provides special care to the whole coffee quality control system.

“Quality is our primary focus, we only take up coffee graded above 84%, so we ensure that farmers are given the essentials to deliver coffee that has quality,” emphasises Karekezi.

Value addition

Since establishing RWASHOSCCO much has improved for the cooperatives, at the start each cooperative only had one washing station but currently they have seventeen (17) washing stations.

Plans are also in the pipeline by next year where four cooperatives will each have a dry mill which is the second category plant in coffee processing, this will enable processing coffee from the farm to the market without going through other private processing companies in Kigali.

Karekezi notes that, as farmers continue to operate the whole value chain the quality of coffee is enhanced because farmers pay more attention to the processes which gives them more knowledge to improve as well as providing them with jobs.

“For farmers to farm and process their own coffee greatly helps RWASHOSCCO to follow-up and obtains quality speciality coffee,” says Karekezi.

Quality is not only what has been achieved since the establishment of the company, production has increased over the years. At its inception the company exported only five containers (90 tonnes) but today exports range between 40 to 50 containers annually.

RWASHOSCCO also sells coffee on the local market, the company has a plant at its headquarters at Mulindi in Kigali that roasts coffee sold in the country. Initially, coffee sold on the local market was less than 10 tonnes but this has grown to 50 tonnes ready to consume coffee sold locally.

The company also has a modern laboratory which is at the fourth level of coffee value chain process. This facility helps to identify any irregularities that may occur during the processes from the farm to

The road to improve value chain of coffee have been a satisfying one for RWASHOSCCO, however some impediments to their activities make it difficult to run everything smoothly.

One of the primary challenges to coffee production is climate change, the changing weather conditions affect coffee mostly on the farm which can impact on production and this brings along pests that affect coffee subverting quality.

Packaging is another challenge that the coffee company faces, package materials used for roasted coffee are imported mostly from China yet this source has remained unreliable with time line and price fluctuations.

roasting level of the coffee and to determine what each customer has ordered.

Over the years, the company has improved the quality of coffee, earned farmers’ profits as well as foreign exchange for the country. RWASHOSCCO helps the cooperatives in price negotiation with buyers in Europe, Asia and the USA, marketing the coffee, export documents and shipping on behalf of producers.

The coffee producers receive various socio-economic benefits ranging from specialized trainings on crop and cooperative management to medical insurance.

The cooperatives organises regular trainings for farmers to increase their capacity and knowledge to produce quality coffee. The cooperatives also organises study tours for the farmers to learn from others.

Whereas the company provides specialised trainings for the management of the cooperatives or any other trainings that the cooperatives deem important. The company also provides trainings on quality based on the past season. Educational trips for the cooperative heads or managers are also provided by the company to visit neighbouring countries, they have visited Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia and plans to visit Kenya this year.

Karekezi observes that such study tours help members to self-evaluate because they get a chance to learn from other farmer cooperatives hence improve their own activities. The coffee market poses other challenges which include competition from other producers and price fluctuations on the international market.

To mitigate some of these challenges RWASHOSCCO targets to bring more innovations to the coffee market. The company is looking at introducing more speciality coffees like organic, honey, natural and women coffee.

Some of these innovative ideas are already fetching high revenues for the farmers like the organic coffee where four containers are exported while women farmers to earn additional income there is now a Rwandan chapter for the International Women Coffee Alliance to promote their coffee on the international market.

SOSOMA InduStrIeS Ltd

SOSOMA is Quality and Health

Vision

To be a credible business and regional reference in agro-processing Values

| Innovation

| Integrity

| Good Governance Mission

Generate revenue through the development of agricultural production;

Provide agri-food products of high quality and nutrient values at affordable prices;

Respond to customer expectations through innovation and appropriate technology.