Coffee Made Happy sets foot in Africa

One of the biggest food, beverage and confectionery conglomerates in the world, Mondelez International, is looking to help boost coffee production in some areas of Africa. Local media has estimated that it could potentially improve exports of some farmers and farmers by almost 50%, according to media reports.

The multinational company is the second biggest coffee selling company in the world and, thanks to its size, has a well-rounded buying strategy which includes purchases from African nations such as Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda.

This move is seen as step towards strengthening its African supply chain, as well as improving the livelihoods of farmers and producers.

“We want to make sure that coffee farming is a profitable business and that farmers and farming communities thrive and develop,” said Roland Weening last month.

Weening is the President for Coffee at Mondelez and was speaking at an event in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

“There is great quality coffee in Africa and we see the productivity levels in Africa are relatively low so there is a great opportunity to improve,” he continued.

The Mondelez led project is entitled Coffee Made Happy and begun in Africa, on a small scale, earlier this year.

The company, based in Deerfield, Illinois, hopes to provide further training in agronomy and economics to around a million farmers over the next five years whilst also advertising the sector to the next generation.

It is part of an established wider programme that was founded in 2012 that is currently helping farmers in Southeast Asia, Central and South America.

Interesting though, one newspaper article that we have seen indicates that not everybody is aware of the initiative. When questioned, Adolph Kumburu, the Director General of the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB), said he wasn’t aware of the project:

“I am first hearing [about this] from you. Let us wait; I cannot say or comment [upon] it,” he told a reporter.