Ensuring Quality Across Burundi’s Value Chain

From high-altitude coffee plants to all kinds of storage bags, Burundi produces superior coffees that meet the high standards of the global specialty coffee marketplace. But at each stage of production, JNP Coffee always strives to do better.

The 18,000 farmers who work with JNP Coffee have learned how to cultivate and care for their coffee trees to yield the highest quality cherries. The wet mill managers trained by JNP Coffee staff employ best practices to wash and sort cherries as they dry on raised African beds.

It’s at the final stage of processing – at the dry mil – where Burundi green coffee becomes the best green coffee. Dry mills pre-clean, hull, polish, size grade, separate, and fill bags of green coffee. Built to handle commodity coffee, Burundi’s existing dry mills are not designed to meet the highest standards for micro-lots of specialty coffee.

JNP Coffee is improving this situation by building and installing a modern, purpose-built dry mill, funded in part through a USAID grant. Once fully operational, the new facility will increase coffee exports by 190 metric tons (10 containers), create 12 full-time jobs, and generate employment for more than 600 seasonal workers. Supporting JNP Coffee’s beliefs in gender equity, more than half of the jobs will be filled by women.

To see this work progressing to benefit coffee farmers, follow us on Instagram or sign up for our newsletter.