One of Coffee Directorate’s mandates is the facilitation of local and international trade promotion of coffee such as conferences and exhibitions in various market segments in the world which has seen fundamental growth of domestic coffee consumption and coffee exports to other destinations.
To ensure that Kenyan coffee is well marketed to the consumers, the Market Research and Product Development Department is tasked with identifying and advising on market linkages, trends and growth opportunities for new and existing target markets.
There are four market segments of Kenyan coffee. The domestic market for local consumption; traditional markets which focus on foreign countries that have been buying Kenyan coffee for long time such as Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, UK and Belgium; specialty markets such as USA and Japan which are the high who buy Kenya’s premium grades such as Kenya AA, AB and PB and the emerging markets which are the countries that buy Kenyan coffee in small volume but have the potential to grow their market share in the purchase of Kenyan coffee such as the Gulf Region, China, Korea, and ASEAN countries.
During exhibitions in this markets, the Directorate facilitates participation of coffee stakeholders and is able to promote Kenyan coffee thus making an important contribution to achieving a balanced of trade and more sustainable world coffee market.
The Directorate has been issuing and approving electronic ICOs since July 2015 on a pilot basis waiting to enlist all the other exporters after a training that has been scheduled. The pilot is being done using 5 dealers namely; Dormans, Sangana, Taylor Winch, Ibero Kenya Ltd and BTG commodities.
The ICOs is an ICT project that facilitates efficiency in business, reduces time wasted,provides accountability and contributes to Economic growth since ICO is an international tool of trade that facilitates trade in coffee industry.
The Directorate has contributed to the Economic growth of this nation in line with the vision 2030.
The Directorate also issues clean coffee movements permits to dealers thus facilitating the movement of coffee locally.
One of the key mandates of the Directorate is to build the international market for Kenya Coffee and the Directorate has been participating in several international coffee exhibitions and conferences together with stakeholders in the coffee industry.
This participation has seen the Kenyan coffee export market expand to over 40,000 MT since 2011/12 up from 35,108 MT in 2009/10 as shown in the graph below. Export volumes are correlated to production quantities over the years.
This financial year, the Directorate has covered two events in foreign countries while trying to foster and establish foreign markets. These are Italy – during the Expo 2015 Milan and Sudan during the Khartoum International fair. The Directorate is also planning to participate during the 2016 Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Symposium and Exhibition is scheduled from 12th to 18th April, 2016 and Gulfood festival 21st to 26th February, 2016 in Dubai as well as builds the Market for Kenyan coffee in South Korea and United Kingdom.