Africa Coffee Bureau (ACB), is a social-entrepreneurial hybrid model, founded on January 07, 2017, out of Silver Spring city to ensure more African coffees get to the United States retail chain structure for a price that means most.
Vision:
Profitable niche markets responsive to specific African coffees in the North American retail chain structure.
Mission:
Excellence in promotion and sustainable competitive market-oriented linkages that ensure premium incentives and profitability for the African
3 Point Strategic Plan
ACB outlines 3-point strategic plan to heighten promotion and niche market traceability, envisaged to translate into increased absorbance of African coffees in the United States retail structure that warrants farmers boom incentives and profitability by;
- Enfranchise African Robustas in the enormously Arabica saturated-stalwart consuming United States.
- Hasten promotion and creation of niche markets for both African Robustas and Arabicas.
- Broker trade negotiations between African farmers and American Roasters.
Purpose:
- Negotiate for at least US$2.0/lb. of green up from US$70 cents/lb. regardless of the commercial grade (Robustas or Arabicas), while increasing the African coffee volume share on the United States market.
- Par-take necessary due diligence in commodity promotion and cup profiling vigor, strategic retail chain entry-point mapping, niche traceability, and creation of novel niche markets with premium incentive rewards and responsiveness to specific origin African coffee collections in the United States market.
- Discover novel niche markets responsive to African Robustas in the enormously Arabica saturated-stalwart consuming United States in addition, to expanding on the narrow African Arabica market-base.
- Design and start-up value addition investment lines leading to reasonably cheaper, affordable yet profitable retail consumer brands for AFRICA and United States markets, science innovations and technologies generation inclusive.
- The 4-point purpose pathway above, is envisioned to translate into increased incomes in general terms, and on per pound of green bean micro-lot derived from the 150 – 400 coffee tree plot-farm model peasantry structural economy for sustainable rural livelihoods improvement in AFRICA.
Economic Significance of Coffee:
Coffee is the most important tropical agricultural commodity traded worldwide and, only second to oil. The industry employs about 26 million people in 52 producing countries (International Coffee Organization, 2010), with 11 million hectares estimated as world’s farmland dedicated to coffee cultivation (National Coffee Association, 2011).
The world coffee supply chain, the United States $88Bn (SCA report 2018: US Coffee Market Overview) retail inclusive, is dependent on smallholders who bulk together as least as 15lbs to consolidate the much-needed global demand volumes of green bean, usually between 153 – 167 million 60kg bags per annum. In the fiscal year 2015 alone, coffee contributed to the United States GDP an estimated $225.2Bn (www.ncausa.org/Research-Trends/Economic-Impact).
The impact of coffee in the United States commodity retail structure is really a high stake, the roasting segment alone accounts for $48Bn, coffeehouses retail controls $26.3Bn and, the At-home brewing stands at $14Bn (SCA report 2018: US Coffee Market Overview). In Hawai’i, coffee year 2020/2021, the cultivated acreage was 6900, producing 5.24 million pounds of green bean that translated into $97.988M (USDA-NASS Report 2020/2021). In Africa, the agricultural sector remains significant, and accounting for 23 per cent of the continent’s GDP with food and agricultural exports averaging at US$35Bn – US$40Bn annually, coffee inclusive (https://www.cabi.org/news-article/building-the-post-covid-19-resilience-for-africas-coffee-sector/). In regional East Africa, coffee is the predominant source of income for most smallholder farmers (Robusta Quality Markers in Africa: ICRAF-USDA/ARS Annual Report 2006). Majority of smallholder farms however, are women led, ranging from 150 – 400 coffee trees and, depend on it for social security; implying they harvest the coffee, store it and, only sell to obtain food, medical care and child education (https://africacoffeebureau.us/founder/). And, nationally, producer nations’ GDP growth and foreign exchange earnings are extensively reliant on coffee. For Kenya, in the coffee year 2021, it fetched $229M from just 36,163MT (586,050 60kg bags) of Arabica grade, (Kenya Bureau of Statistics Report, 2021); and Uganda’s 6.55 million 60kg bags of both Robustas and Arabicas export, translated into $657.23M (UCDA Report, 2021).
The sample trade figures cited in a few coffee-national scenarios above, reaffirm the economic significance of the commodity value chain. The trade statistics also reveals the need and serves as a caution to sector development agencies to safeguard the integrity of the value chain by developing policies that embrace all players if the commodity derived GDP growth is to spur exponentially.
Underlying Rationale of ACB Business:
The coffee supply chain, the United States $88Bn (SCA report 2018: US Coffee Market Overview) retail inclusive, is dependent on smallholders who bulk together as least as 15lbs to consolidate the much-needed global demand volumes of green bean, usually between 153 – 167 million 60kg bags per annum. Majority of smallholder farms however, are women led, ranging from 150 – 400 coffee tree plot-farms and, depend on it for social security; implying they have to harvest the coffee, store it and, only sell to obtain food, medical care and child education (https://africacoffeebureau.us/founder/). But often lack reliable and incentive rewarding niche markets. Available market options pay only US$70 Cents per pound of green bean which translates into $60 for roaster’s whole bean on the shelves of major retail stores such as Walmart or Costco or, $240 from serving espressos and cappuccinos in retail structures such as Starbucks in industrial consumer nations, United States inclusive.
Farmers are so desperate, some abandoning or even cutting down coffee shambas, and this threatens the sustainability of the commodity industry, and ultimately the supply chain. Is it conceivable to wake one morning with-out a cup of coffee? Roasters and multinational corporations, however, may not be blamed entirely for the state of the poor compensation for the farmers coffee. The problem lies with the farmer leadership. The lack of functional promotional vigor by African farmer co-operative leaders to trigger attractive responsiveness for their coffees from industrial consumer market players comparative to trade efforts by their peers, the Latina grower in Colombia or Brazil for example, is one of the key compelling reasons for the founding of ACB.
ACB positioning in Washington DC, and residence headquarters; places it well for uninterrupted routine cup profiling vigor, a necessary step in the urgent call for niche traceability and the creation of novel niche markets enfranchised with premium incentive rewards, Africa badly needs for the ample proportional compensation for farmer coffees.
ACB undertakes promotion, niche market traceability, trade negotiations, and market linkages between farmers and roasters; to see more African coffee volumes get to the United States market for a price that means most; and this is dependent on the MOT-Model.