Country Context
Kenya is an enigma. It occupies a top spot in specialty – Kenyan top lots are always amongst the most expensive of any harvest. Yet it’s a country where coffee production is volume-oriented, yet dropping year over year. Kenya is a place where traceability is given, but knowing what you want and how to get it are two different things. Rarely do we find partners more capable, and loyalties more difficult to navigate than we do in Kenya. For all the aforementioned reasons, competition in Kenya is fierce, making prized coffees feel like even more of a success.
However, in 2023 Kenya’s coffee sector underwent wholesale reform – one result of which was the ability for farmers to sell outside of the auction through direct export channels. This is a wilderness, with little direction and no support. But at the same time farmers have never been more energized.
In the western rift valley, for example, there is a group of farmers who are cupping their coffees for the first time. Here, and in the Central Highlands, famers are experimenting with post-harvest processing, cutting-edge fermentations, and – yes – even lot separation (by block, by varietal and by time of harvest). Never before has there been any reason for farmers to pay attention, but now that they are, they’re interested.
It is in this context that C2C operates. We have organized a network of service providers – cuppers, agronomists, millers, banks and exporters who have agreed to act as service providers instead of traditional intermediaries. This means using a transparent, cost-plus, auction-based pricing model to present producers with premiums based on cup score. A network of labs, cuppers, roasters and educators are in constant calibration to bring this process as close the farm as is possible. Then it is on us at Crop to Cup to make sure that those farmers who are interested in producing for specialty markets know this is an option, and how it works.
Farmers sign-up by sending in samples on scheduled dates, and agreeing to hold them for two weeks. Samples are sent to our labs, evaluated, and presented offers based on that week’s auction + cup score. If producers agree then we arrange for the pickup and payment of their coffee, secondary milling, bagging and export.
