M-Kiosk: Online Sales platform

Globally there are 267 million young people (aged 15-24) who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). In Kenya 17.1 million youth aged below 35 years of age are not in employment, education or training (NEET) and lack the educational qualifications for the competitive formal sector.

We will generate employment opportunities for the unemployed youth (18-35 years) as online coffee entrepreneurs. This will provide employment in areas with few opportunities.  We will do this through M-KIOSK an online multi-channel platform that will enable the youth to create custom channels to sell coffee beans to online customers providing increased market access.

The latest Industry forecast from Euromonitor International (EMI) indicates that demand for freshly roasted coffee in Kenya will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% to 2023. Our solution is scalable and replicable and can be expanded to other regions in Kenya, East Africa and globally.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) employment trends more than 497 million people globally are unemployed of which 67.6 million are young women and men (aged 15-24).  Additionally, one-fifth of young people worldwide, equating to 267 million people, are not in employment, education or training (NEET) revealing a substantial youth labour under-utilization.

Kenya has a young population as revealed by data from the 2019 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) census with 35.7 million (75%) young men and women aged below 35 years of age. Within this age group 17.1 million are not in employment, education or training (NEET) equating to 48% of the Kenyan youth.  

Unemployment is particularly affecting the farming youth resulting in their economic migration from rural areas to urban cities in search of better livelihoods. 69% of Kenyan youth come from rural farming areas lacking the educational qualifications for a competitive urban job market. 

With a labour under-utilization of 10.24% there are inadequate employment opportunities generated annually in Kenya to support the growing demand for employment. Appropriate sustainable and inclusive entrepreneurship and employment opportunities are required to create more and better jobs for the youth ensuring their participation in the labour market.

Taste of Kenya launched our roasting facilities in Kenya having seen the growing demand for affordable freshly brewed coffee in the country. We have been able to grow and capture the B2B market targeting the HORECA businesses (Hotels, Restaurants, Cafes) with our high quality coffee that differentiates us from our competitors. 

Due to the success of our B2B offering, we are now aiming to target the consumer directly through an online multi-channel platform (M-KIOSK) with the aim of empowering the youth through entrepreneurial sales at the same time making freshly brewed coffee available and accessible to the low income consumers.

M-KIOSK will enable entrepreneurs to setup their own custom micro-site from a centralised platform selling freshly roasted coffee beans to the low-income communities in Kenya. This platform will be linked to mobile app services and also support social media retailing providing a seamless customer interaction with mobile banking (M-PESA) and card payments. We will also provide warehousing and distribution services to the entrepreneurs working with delivery couriers across the country connecting those cities with freshly roasted coffee. 

M-KIOSK will make coffee affordable and accessible to the low-income consumers in the country while supporting our aim to reduce youth unemployment. 

Taste of Kenya is building an online multi-channel sales platform for Africa's youth, starting with Kenyan youth. We will supply, store and deliver freshly roasted coffee from our central warehouse to customers nationwide based on online orders received from the youth entrepreneurs’ micro sites.

Our solution serves the unemployed youth sector in Kenya increasing their access to decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) by generating employment opportunities initially for unemployed youth (18-35 years) as online coffee entrepreneurs. 

The initial pilot will be rolled out in Nairobi where we will target youth and supply them with the online micro stores. We will support and assist the youth entrepreneurs in setting up their sales channels and provide them with a network of online sales agents to support each micro-site zone/area. Additionally, all the youth entrepreneurs will attend an online training course where we will provide them with training in coffee sales and online marketing resulting in certification of their online selling skills.

Following this pilot, we will launch this scheme nationwide in Kenya (47 counties) and after one year roll this out to the East Africa region and globally targeting 1 million jobs for youth globally as online coffee entrepreneurs.

The problem we are addressing is high unemployment among farming youth resulting in their economic migration from rural areas to urban cities in search of better livelihoods. More than 75% of Kenyans are below 35 years of age with 69% of them living in rural areas. However, the youth lack the educational qualifications for a competitive urban job market and as a result 48% of them are not in employment, education or training (NEET).

Our solution addresses this challenge by providing opportunities for the marginalized youth to access and create sustainable jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities from an online marketplace. 

Our solution is innovative as it will enable us to build community around the social cause of providing employment opportunities to marginalised rural youth while increasing the domestic supply of affordable coffee to the low-income communities in Kenya.

The domestic coffee market in Kenya is in its infancy as only three per cent of the coffee produced in Kenya is consumed locally. With the large, youthful population and the strong emerging working age population there is a huge untapped potential to increase local consumption of coffee in Kenya. 

M-KIOSK is an innovative multi-channel sales platform that will enable us to target consumers nationwide who would otherwise be inaccessible as given the current lock-down more customers will be turning online for their purchases. This is in line with current industry trends from EMI that indicate coffee in Kenya is showing signs of continued growth as an aspirational product among the youth population and our affordable and accessible coffee will create a new category to attract consumers.  

Taste of Kenya provides accessible and affordable freshly roasted coffee beans to the low income community in Kenya. Our immediate goals are to increase availability of affordable coffee to the low income community in Kenya by providing an alternative source of market for coffee farmers in Kenya. 

Our long term aim is to increase the availability of affordable high quality coffee in the domestic market in Kenya to improve the per apita consumption from 1 kg per capita to the average global consumption rates of 6 kg per capita. This will improve the farmer margins as well due to providing a large local market base for coffee. 

To test market demand we have carried out small-scale market tests in Nairobi and Athi-River. Results indicate higher demand for freshly roasted coffee as low-income communities want access to higher quality freshly roasted affordable coffee as opposed to instant coffee or tea.

Industry forecast from Euromonitor (EMI) indicate that demand for freshly brewed locally roasted coffee will grow at a rate of 6.7% to 2023.  Tea only recorded moderate growth rates over 2011-2015 while freshly brewed coffee has outpaced instant coffee in terms of volume and retail value growth over the last five years. 

Taste of Kenya is a private, family owned, female-led company owned and operated by Zipporah Gatiti and her mother, Margaret Gatiti with 10 full time staff based in Kenya.

Our team has the following knowledge and skillset:

1- Experienced producers:  We are from a third-generation coffee family that has farmed our land for over 40 years with a working relationship with many coffee farmers in Kenya. We will use the same network of farmers to source coffee from for the domestic market.

2- Experienced coffee roasters with experience supplying to the market in Kenya: We launched our roasting facilities in Kenya having seen the growing demand for affordable freshly brewed coffee in the country. We are already supplying roasted coffee to the HORECA (Hotel, Restaurant and Café) businesses in Kenya. 

3- We have experience working with and training the youth. Our Operations Director is a seasoned educator skilled in adult and youth education and has established key relationship with the Kenyan Education board. We will build on those relationship as we develop online training courses for the youth on entrepreneurship and M-KIOSK sales.

4- Our key strength as a team is our clear understanding of our company's mission, what we stand for and the sustainable impact we seek to make in the world. We constantly align our daily operations with the company's purpose and encourage understanding and passion for that mission among all employees. This has led to employee loyalty and customer engagement. 

Taste of Kenya currently has the following partnership.

Buhler Switzerland is our roasting machine supplier. We will partner with them to supply coffee roasting machines as we scale to additional markets outside Kenya. We will establish local roasting facilities in those countries.

Our business model is based on supplying affordable and easy-to-use fresh ground coffee roasted locally in our factory in Kenya and sold to the consumers by youth entrepreneurs in our online marketplace. This will sustain our competitive advantage as follows:

1- We will source green coffee directly from farmers in Kenya ensuring they receive fair margins for their coffee and instant payment this will give us direct control to the coffee supply source.

2- Affordable freshly roasted coffee: We will locally roast and package freshly roasted Kenyan Arabica coffee beans using our Swiss manufactured Buhler RoastMaster20 to ensure consistency and a higher quality roast.

3- We will utilise a network of online youth sales agents to sell our coffee to make coffee affordable and accessible to the low-income consumers.

We are looking for strategic advice from the MIT Solve team on:

1. Implementing an equitable and cost effective technology platform that will provide the right capacity investment to serve the low income communities.
2. Designing a scalable business model that will include market research, pricing model and distribution channels.
3. Defining and documenting the right impact metrics to measure and report on 

In Kenya 17.1 million youth aged below 35 years of age are not in employment, education or training (NEET) and lack the educational qualifications for a competitive formal sector. We will generate employment opportunities for the unemployed youth (18-35 years) as online coffee entrepreneurs targeting 50% female entrepreneurs. 

We will use the Innovation for Women Prize to advance employment opportunities to unemployment youth female entrepreneurs in the following areas:

1. Online coffee sales
2. Coffee procurement and field services
3. Coffee warehousing and packaging
4. Roasted coffee field sales as mobile youth entrepreneurs

This solution is scalable and replicable and can be expanded to other regions in Kenya, East Africa and globally targeting 1 million jobs for youth globally as online coffee entrepreneurs. targeting 1 million jobs for youth globally as online coffee entrepreneurs. 

We qualify for the Future Planet Capital Prize as Taste of Kenya is on a mission to build a sustainable business using the triple bottom line approach by building a positive future for the farmers, increasing the production and supply of coffee in the country and empowering our youth through entrepreneurship.

Coffee farming is no longer viewed as a viable livelihood by Kenyan farmers due to lack of economic incentives. This has led to high unemployment among farming youth resulting in the economic migration from rural areas to urban cities in search of better livelihoods. This has led to high youth unemployment in Kenya of 17.1 million as the farming youth lack the educational qualifications for a competitive urban job market. Without alternative means to earn an income the unemployment levels among the farming youth will rise year on year.

Our solution serves the unemployed youth sector in Kenya increasing their access to decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) by generating employment opportunities initially for unemployed youth (18-35 years) as online coffee entrepreneurs. 

The initial pilot will be rolled out in Nairobi where we will target youth and supply them with the online micro stores. We will support and assist the youth entrepreneurs in setting up their sales channels and provide them with a network of online sales agents to support each micro-site zone/area. Additionally, all the youth entrepreneurs will attend an online training course where we will provide them with coffee, online marketing and business sales training over several days resulting in certification of their online selling skills.

Following this pilot, we will launch this scheme nationwide in Kenya (47 counties) and after one year roll this out to the East Africa region and globally targeting 1 million jobs for youth globally as online coffee entrepreneurs.