Kenya Planning to Expand Its Coffee Exports to the US

Kenya is planning to expand its coffee exports to the United States (US) which is the world’s largest consumer of the beverage, by marketing the East African nation’s speciality premium grade beans.

This is set to be made a reality during the upcoming Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) symposium to be held in Seattle next month. The symposium will be bringing together more than 15,000 people from the coffee industry across the globe.

The US is Kenya’s third largest market for coffee, but it pays a higher price for the commodity compared to any other country.

“North America is a big market for speciality coffee and we expect the visibility Kenyan coffee gets will help grow our market share in the US,” said Kiplimo Melly, head of Kenya’s Coffee Directorate.

Kenyan coffee traders will have to sign up new contacts with their American counterparts for both direct and indirect purchases during the symposium. This is meant to improve Kenyan coffee volumes in America.

“One major advantage with the US market is their ability to pay premium coffee prices comparatively. Whereas Germany is the largest buyer of Kenyan coffee, US has been leading in terms of the average price paid per 50 kilograms’ bag of coffee,” added Melly.

Germany bought the most speciality Kenyan coffee in the last season at 8.17-million kilograms followed by Belgium with 7.4-million kilograms. While Kenya happens to be a small-scale coffee grower compared with regional producers such as Ethiopia and Uganda, its beans are highly sought after for their acidity and often used in blends to improve coffee from other origins.

About 85 per cent of the Kenyan coffee is sold through the Nairobi auction with the remaining percentage sold directly to buyers in overseas. The Kenyan government has been pushing for more direct sales to enable growers earn from their crop by eliminating middlemen who exploit farmers when their crop goes through the auction.

Kenya’s earnings from coffee exports went up by 7.8 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year, in what was attributed to an increase of direct sales for specialty coffee.

“Our farmers should benefit from higher prices resulting from direct sales to buyers, which is going to eliminate intermediary parties along the value chain,” said director-general of Agriculture Food Authority (AFA) Alfred Busolo.

Kenya was chosen as a portrait country in this year’s exhibition making it the focus of the activities in the coffee fair that starts on April 20.