Caffe Del Duca has celebrated a number of milestones in the five years of its operations in the coffee sector. Our team under the leadership of Gunther has been a key stakeholder in deliberations, decision making and actions on coffee farming in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and South Africa. The team has participated in various fruitful consultations and has been offering guidance in various projects.
The firm has been able to turn around the fortunes of over 2,000 farmers in large coffee estates and small holder coffee farmers. Remarkable success has been achieved in the Lukolole and Namasoli Farmers Cooperative Societies in Western Kenya which have given a model which can be replicated among East African coffee farmers.
In 2010 the firm acquired coffee roaster, pod machine and the silos to have a final product and Caffe Del Duca started roasting and packaging its own espresso. This has gone a long way in entrenching the firm in the coffee value chain as well as giving it the ability to have a say on the quality of its brands of espresso.
The firm has introduced (importing and fabricating) coffee processing machines which have had an impact on small holder coffee farmers. One of the most revolutionary products is the pulper that runs without water.
The firm has also been able to penetrate Malindi espresso market and is going a step further by opening a chain of coffee shops under the brand name Jahazi.
The firm has also formed a strategic partnership with Khaki youth Group from whom it sources packaging bags.
An initiative named: “Enhancing Sustainable Profitability across the Coffee Farming Value Chain Ecosystem in Western, Nyanza & Rift Valley Regions” commenced in November 2013.
Ongoing Projects
Caffe Del Duca is immensely indebted to the Hivos team for their support given so far. The Hivos funding has enabled the firm to undertake activities, which would have been difficult using purely a “for profit” model. The initiative is already working with 1,200 farmers and targets all together 10,000 with a potential of over 3,000 tons of washed Robusta coffee (18,000 tons of cherry) per year. The initiative is covering a geographical area equivalent to half the size of Netherlands stretching Western, Nyanza and parts of Rift Valley (20,000 km2). The initiative is also having an impact across the border into Uganda as evidenced by sourcing of seedlings and cuttings from the only viable large scale Robusta coffee plantation, known as Kaweri Coffee Plantations in Uganda (an important fact concerning all aspects of agronomy, research and development, plant variety and availability a.s.o.)
The ongoing initiative has been able to build the capacities of over 1,200 Robusta farmers, 500 youth entrepreneurs, 150 micro & small enterprise owners/managers and 80 apprentices/students. Thousands more are benefitting directly through the value chain activities through creation of opportunities. The initiative has enabled Caffe Del Duca to conduct over 450 training session on improvement of robusta value chain. The initiative has enabled establishment of one large mother nursery for the cloning coffee plants while setting up 10 hardening and distribution centres across the region is ongoing. For intercropping materials the same approach has being adopted where Caffe Del Duca is establishing two key nurseries and then having the 10 hardening and distribution centres.
Caffe Del Duca has been able to set 3 washing pulping stations to serve the small holder farmers. Caffe Del Duca has also been able to increase its output to 300,000 espresso cups since the strategic partnership with Hivos. The firm has also supported establishment of 44 coffee shops across Kenya and in Somalia. The firm has captured 75% of all Italian restaurants in Malindi and Watamu, which have been the greatest consumers of imported espresso (for the same period before the partnership we had done 83,000 espresso cups). The remarkable local consumption feats have been achieved through professional vertical marketing integration. Caffe Del Duca Ltd has also formed strategic partnership with institutions locally and abroad including roasters. The local partnership with the Busia County Government has borne fruits by providing 3 million banana seedlings as shade trees for coffee farmers from government sources.