How 'World of Coffee' benefits Congolese cooperatives
14-08-2024Written by Merveille Kakule Saliboko, Agriterra communications consultant in DR Congo
From June 27 to 29, 2024, the World of Coffee was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. World of Coffee is the world's largest coffee industry trade fair. Two delegates from Congolese cooperatives supported by Agriterra were present. One of the two participants, Gilbert Makelele, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cooperative society of innovative coffee growers in Kivu, SCPNCK, looks back on the “achievements” of this trip.
Before the show began, Jim Liseki, Senior Cooperative Advisor at Agriterra, said: “We expect these cooperatives to expand their portfolio of international buyers, and to organise face-to-face meetings to gather valuable information. This will enable them to establish relationships and build customer loyalty. In addition, interactions with roasters will provide information on the profile of the coffee through tasting sessions, enabling production and processing to be adjusted”.
Bahati Buraye Bienfait and Jim Liseki (Cooperative Advisors Agriterra), Aimé Byamungu (Marketing officer SOPACDI) and Gilbert Makelele (Chairman SCPNCK)
The smiles on the faces of Gilbert Makelele of SCPNCK and Aimé Byamungu, Marketing Manager of SOPACDI (Solidarity for the promotion of coffee actions and development) during the 3 days of the show are a sign of hope. Both SCPNCK and SOPACDI are active in the province of Sud-Kivu, in the eastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For Gilbert Makelele, the mission has been accomplished and the harvest has been good.
“At the World of Coffee, we met over 200 buyers”
It's on his return home that I speak with him, in Goma, capital of the province of North-Kivu, in the eastern part of the DRC: Gilbert Makelele has stars in his eyes as he speaks. “At the World of Coffee, we met over 200 coffee buyers,” he enthuses. “It was very important for us to take part in the World of Coffee. It was a golden opportunity for us small producers to meet international coffee buyers.”
“This trip enabled us to meet our best coffee buyer, This Side Up, a Dutch company that buys our coffee at $7-8 per kilo. This Side Up sells to roasters in Europe. This company connected us with other buyers, such as Bo Bybo Coffee from the Netherlands, Cumpa from Germany, and Virunga Blue Mountains Coffee from Belgium. These three companies ordered our coffee via This Side Up. We had 50 bags ordered from This Side Up before this show. We're going to go up to 200 bags of green coffee, with the hope of reaching a full container (320 bags) soon”, announces Gilbert.
SCPNCK currently produces 5 containers of coffee a year. The cooperative's action plan is to export 8 containers each year. For the moment, all 5 containers are exported to Europe, to 5 customers: Ethiquable, Maison P. Jobin & Cie SAS, EFICO, and This Side Up.
In addition to European buyers, Makelele reports that contacts with American and Japanese buyers were initiated at the World of Coffee trade show. The buyers' interest came from tasting Congolese coffee. “I took part in tasting sessions for our coffee. This encouraged many buyers to order more coffee”, says the SCPNCK chairman.
Beyond buyers, meetings with various other players
“In Copenhagen, we had a meeting with Small Holdr. In partnership with Agriterra, we, the cooperatives, are going to work on compliance with the new European Union regulation on deforestation (EUDR). We will prove that our coffee does not contribute to deforestation. This will enable us to export our coffee to the Schengen area from January 2025. These include organic certification (which we, SCPNCK, already have) and the geolocation of small coffee producers. This is the main focus of our work with Small Holdr”, adds Makelele, adding that taking part in the World of Coffee “enabled us to make contact with suppliers of the coffee equipment we need: pro beans, jute bags, hygrometers”.
And, as cooperatives need money, “we talked to ethical lenders like Kampani, Alterfin, SIDI, Rabobank, and Root Capital. We met with Kampani, Root Capital, and Rabobank. And established telephone contacts with IncoFin, SIDI, and Alterfin. We are already working with SIDI and Root Capital. The trade fair in Copenhagen was an opportunity to rekindle ties”.
The SCPNCK president also said that during the show he met a partner interested in the agroecology program set up by small-scale coffee growers to capture carbon credits shortly.
More samples needed
“When we went to Copenhagen, we had nearly 60 kilograms of coffee samples from the KACCO, MUUNGANO, SOPACDI, and SCPNCK cooperatives. Do you know something? That wasn't enough samples. All 200 buyers wanted samples of coffee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The job now is to collect enough samples to send to potential customers”, says Gilbert Makelele, who thanks Agriterra “for accompanying us step by step in our participation in this trade show”.
Agriterra supported the Congolese cooperatives' participation in World of Coffee 2024 in several ways: coordinating the logistics of the event, organising preparatory meetings to improve the marketing strategy and commercial presentation of the Kivu cooperatives, setting up a stand so that the cooperatives could present their coffee, and organising meetings with potential buyers during the show in Denmark and other meetings in the Netherlands.
Agriterra supports SCPNCK and SOPACDI as well as other Arabica coffee cooperatives in the provinces of North and South Kivu as part of the TRIDE project, Transition for inclusive development in Eastern DRC. The project is financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and implemented by a consortium comprising ZOA, VNG International and Agriterra.
