Kilifi Coast Roastery: from village co-op to first export container

The value leaves before the coffee does

Ninety smallholder families grow coffee on the ridge above Kilifi. They sell it as raw cherry to a middleman, who sells it wet-processed, who sells it green to an exporter, who sells it to a roaster in Europe for roughly eleven times what the farmer received. Everybody in that chain adds something. The farmer adds the most and captures the least.

The co-op has spent three years fixing the parts it could afford to fix. There is now a shared washing station, drying beds that meet specialty grade, and a cupping score that averaged 84.5 last season, which is genuinely good coffee. What is missing is the last two steps: roasting at scale and getting a container to a buyer who has already said yes.

What we are building

A 15kg drum roaster, a grading and packing line, and the certification paperwork that lets the co-op export in its own name rather than through an agent. A buyer in Rotterdam has committed to two containers a year at a price that returns roughly 3.4 times the current farmgate rate, conditional on us meeting their moisture and traceability standard, which we can already do on paper and cannot yet do at volume.

• A Rotterdam roaster has signed a letter of intent for two 18-tonne containers a year.
• The washing station and drying beds are built and operating, funded by the co-op itself.
• Last season cupped at 84.5 average across six lots, with the best lot at 87.
• Ninety member families, each with between 0.4 and 2 hectares, all on written membership terms.

What the funding buys

This is a business, not a charity appeal, and the co-op will repay the equipment portion into a revolving fund for the next co-op on the coast. That commitment is written into the grant agreement.

• $19,400 — 15kg drum roaster and installation Refurbished, from a Nairobi supplier who provides parts and a service contract. New would be twice this and no better.
• $12,800 — Grading, packing and sealing line Density grading, a colour sorter and a vacuum sealer, which is the piece that makes the moisture standard achievable.
• $9,600 — Three-phase power and building works The site has single-phase power. This is the least exciting line in the budget and the one that stops everything if it is missing.
• $7,300 — Export licensing, traceability and certification Warehouse registration, a first organic audit and the barcode traceability the buyer requires per lot.
• $5,600 — Working capital for the first harvest The co-op must pay farmers at delivery and will not be paid by the buyer for ninety days. This gap kills more co-ops than bad coffee does.
• $3,500 — Training and platform fees Two roasters and four packers trained to the buyer standard, plus the campaign costs.

We are not asking anyone to feel sorry for us. We are asking for the two machines that stand between good coffee and a fair price for it.

Who is behind this

Riverbend Community Foundation is administering the funds and holding the grant agreement, but the project belongs to the Kilifi Ridge Growers Co-operative, whose committee of seven is elected annually by the membership. Wanjiru Kamau has worked with them since 2021, initially on the washing station, and the foundation takes no fee from this campaign. The co-op keeps its own books and they have been externally audited for the last two years.

Risks and challenges

Coffee is weather and weather is not negotiable. A bad season would push the first container from next August into the following year, and the letter of intent is not a contract — the buyer can walk if quality slips, which is precisely why the grading line is in the budget rather than being deferred. The power connection is the most likely source of delay, because the utility works to its own timetable and we have been quoted between eight and twenty weeks. Currency movement affects the equipment quotes, which are dollar-denominated. The co-op has agreed that if the campaign lands short of target, the roaster and power works go first and the packing line waits a season.