Taste of Kenya

I’m the CEO of Taste of Kenya, an award-winning coffee agri-business that combats inequalities and helps Kenyans thrive by optimizing the nation’s coffee supply chain and buying directly from local farmers. With an executive MBA from London Business School, Computer Science degree from Ireland and more than 16 years of international experience in strategy and operations management, I’m passionate about using my global business expertise to help resolve economic disparities, cultivate a sustainable future for local farmers, increase the production and supply of coffee in Kenya, and empower youth through entrepreneurship. Taste of Kenya has customers in the Ireland, UK and Switzerland as is a prior winner of MassChallenge Switzerland, a global social impact accelerator.

Encouraging consumption of coffee in the domestic market in Kenya through supplying coffee bags (similar to tea bags) containing 10g of premium ground Kenyan coffee roasted and packaged in Kenya to maintain freshness. 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 middle class, there is a huge untapped potential to increase local consumption of coffee in Kenya. In Kenya we will locally roast coffee and sell freshly roasted coffee as coffee bags (similar to tea bags). These coffee bags will contain freshly ground coffee that will make it easier to convert tea drinkers and instant coffee drinkers. Furthermore, by locally roasting coffee we are creating additional income for the Kenyan farmers, creating local jobs for the youth and encouraging local consumption of coffee in Kenya.

The major problem facing the coffee industry in Kenya is the severe inequality in the coffee supply chain that has resulted in low coffee production, high youth unemployment and low levels of domestic consumption of coffee in the country.

Coffee farming is no longer viewed as a viable livelihood by Kenyan farmers due to lack of economic incentives. As a result, Kenya's coffee production has fallen by over 61 per cent in the last 25 years as farmers are cutting down their coffee trees.

This has led to high unemployment among farming youth who depend on farming labour resulting in their economic migration from rural areas to urban cities in search of better livelihoods. However, the youth lack the educational qualifications for a competitive urban job market resulting in 48% youth unemployment.

Additionally, for coffee growing country Kenya has one of the lowest levels of domestic coffee consumption in the world with an average per capita consumption of less than 1 kilo. Kenya is one of the best producers of specialty Arabica coffee however more than 90 per cent of the coffee is exported leading to a shorter supply in the local market. 

Our social innovation is implementing innovative easy-to-use affordable coffee bags that will encourage local consumption of coffee in Kenya supporting our overall mission to support responsible farming, production and consumption of coffee.

We will supply ground coffee to the consumers in coffee bags (similar to tea bags). Our coffee bags will be individual small, porous, sealed bags containing ground coffee which is immersed in water to make an infusion.

The alternatives to our affordable coffee bags are loose black tea among low-income consumers and instant coffee however, the current alternatives have the following limitations: Tea only recorded moderate growth rates in Kenya over 2011-2015 as interest has shifted to freshly brewed coffee with industry trends from Euromonitor (EMI) indicating only a marginal increase in consumption of tea is expected over the next 5 years in favour of coffee consumption.

Furthermore, freshly ground coffee has outpaced instant coffee in terms of volume and retail value growth over the last five years. Current Euromonitor (EMI) market trends indicate that the appetite for instant coffee is declining in favour of freshly brewed locally roasted coffee and this demand is expected to grow at a rate of 6.7% to 2023. 

Our primary beneficiaries are Small-scale coffee farmers in Kenya who number over 700,000. Kenya's coffee production has fallen over 61 per cent in the last 25 years as farmers are cutting down their coffee trees due to low margins received from coffee sales. Through our direct purchase from farmers they will earn higher margins for their coffee production.  We will also serve unemployed youth in Kenya and engage them to sell our affordable coffee bags. Our mobile coffee solution will make coffee affordable and accessible to the low-income consumers in the country, supporting our aim to reduce youth unemployment and providing additional market access to coffee farmers for their produce. Our customer is the lower-income segment of the population who are not served by the current expensive market offering. We will target the existing instant coffee consumers and tea consumers and offer them a lower priced alternative product that is locally grown, freshly roasted and higher quality than the existing alternatives. By directly targeting the consumer with our innovative compostable coffee bags we will adapt to the market needs and supply a scalable solution to the growing population of customers who are looking for affordable easy-to-use products.

Taste of Kenya provides an innovative field to fork solution that supports responsible farming, production, supply and consumption of coffee. We do this through innovative easy-to-use affordable coffee bags containing 10g of ground coffee roasted and packaged in Kenya to encourage local consumption of coffee and supporting youth entrepreneurship.

Our project relates to elevating humanity as our aim is to make a lasting difference to the Kenyan coffee industry and to the challenge of Youth unemployment. Our coffee bags will help stimulate the consumption of coffee in the country, improve the employment opportunities for Kenyan youth while increasing farmer margins.

I was born in Kenya and moved to Ireland for my undergraduate studies in Computer Science and later continued my graduate education with an MBA from London Business School. I am a strong believer in social responsibility, and I have been actively involved in the community in Ireland through projects I launched to mentor ethnic entrepreneurs and train the youth in entrepreneurship.

In 2013 during a trip to Kenya I visited my grandmother’s farm and noticed she was cutting down her trees due to poor coffee margins and late payments. Over 700,000 farmers were getting low margins as they sold their coffee to roasters via middlemen, but the price mechanism worked in reverse. The roaster paid a price, the middlemen took their profit and whatever was left went to the farmer. I founded Taste of Kenya Coffee to simplify the coffee supply chain by linking my grandmother and other small-holder coffee farmers directly to the export market in Europe giving them access to higher margins and direct wages. The business was established with a vision for a company that does good for everyone: farmers, coffee buyers and the community.  

I am altruistic and determined to make a difference to the community around me by empowering and supporting the marginalised people in society.  I founded Taste of Kenya to help local farmers earn higher margins with sustainable farming practices designed to produce higher crop yields. As part of my work with the local farmers, I observed a large number of the farming youth were unemployed as there was not enough demand for farming labour. Appropriate sustainable and inclusive employment opportunities were required to ensuring their participation in the labour market.

It was under this mandate that we launched the youth initiative to create employment opportunities for young people through coffee sales. We are 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.

This will provide long term solutions to key issues such as farmers access to higher coffee margins (improved livelihoods), regenerative agriculture (soil health and carbon capture) and job creation (reduced urban migration).

Since launching Taste of Kenya our team has been able to successfully link Kenyan coffee farmers to customers in Ireland, UK and Switzerland giving our farmers fair margins and we will use the same network of farmers to source coffee from for the domestic market. We are experienced producers 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.

Additionally, we are experienced coffee roasters with a centrally located secure warehouse in Kenya that uses a top of the range roasting machine from Buhler (Switzerland).  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 low-income consumer directly. There is a huge untapped potential to supply affordable and easy-to-use coffee to the low-income consumers in the market who are not served by the current market offering. By directly targeting the consumer with our innovative coffee bags we will adapt to the market needs and supply a scalable solution to the growing population of customers who are looking for affordable easy-to-use products. 

I have been able to overcome failure due to a market entry strategy that did not work for the company. In 2018, we attempted to expand our market base in Europe by targeting the UK market. As part of our strategy we conducted marketing research that showed a positive response to our direct trade offering with the retail sector. Following this we launched a sales campaign opening a local office base in the UK but unfortunately our sales strategy did not work, and we had to close down our UK office.

This was a difficult moment for the company and for me both personally and professionally. However, as we had committed to working with our farmers to expand their market base, we needed to quickly pivot to ensure we could continue to serve them. This is what led us to identify the opportunity in Kenya to supply roasted coffee to the local market. We are now supplying coffee to the domestic sector in Kenya and have maintained the relationships with our farmers and we intend to use our local roasting offering to provide employment opportunities to the youth nationwide and globally. 

My Grandmother Esther has been farming coffee passionately for the past 40 years nurturing the Coffee trees in her farm for months each year, carefully hand picking them during harvest periods, transporting them to the co-operatives then having to wait up-to 9 months to get her payment. During a farm visit I realised she was not earning enough from her coffee sales to provide her with a sustainable livelihood.

At the time I was a student at London Business School pursuing an executive MBA. I used my time at the school to research and understand supply chain optimisation and launched a pilot that helped to export and sell her Coffee directly to Roasters in the UK and Ireland.

Following this pilot, I realised this model would work at scale and thereafter launched Taste of Kenya in Ireland to purchase coffee from other smallholder farmers in Kenya and sell it to coffee buyers in Europe. Hence not only did I identify a need affecting farmers in Kenya, I also launched an organisation to address this and additionally I have spoken about this issue in various print and media outlets including the Financial Times Print copy in 2018.