April 2008

Kenyan specialty AA grade coffee fetched $600 per 50-kg bag, its highest price using the direct sales system introduced two years ago, an exporter said on Wednesday. "Coffees from Ndiara and Mamuto Estates fetched between $600 and $400 per 50-kg bag for AA and AB grades respectively," exporting firm C. Dorman said in a statement. "This is the second year that coffee from these two estates have been identified as showing true gourmet `pick of the crop' quality." In 2007, a small lot of AB coffee fetched $954 per bag but the sale was done through the traditional auction system. Kenya launched a new direct coffee marketing system in 2006 to run alongside the coffee auction system that has been in place since 1935, in a bid to boost farmers' incomes. Growers had long demanded a so-called "second window" which they said would allow them to negotiate better prices with buyers abroad and do away with a chain of middlemen who took most of their earnings. The two estates that produced the star coffees are located in Kirinyaga district where rich volcanic soils and an altitude of 1,460 metres contribute to the high quality beans the central Mt. Kenya region is known for. The Coffee Management Services, which is the marketing agent for the two estates, also sold other lots from the area at prices ranging between $350 and $500 per 50-kg bags for AA grades, the statement said. The coffees went to gourmet buyers and roasters in the Netherlands, Japan and the United States. The east African nation is a small coffee producer, contributing only about 1 percent of total global production but its top quality Arabica beans are used by roasters around the world to blend with coffees from other regions. In the weekly auction held at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) on Tuesday, the average price fell to $160.55 per 50-kg bag from $170.79 last week for the 18,329 60-kg bags on offer. A total 14,581 bags were sold. Top grade AA sold at between $320-$160 per bag compared with $286-$169 during the last auction while prices for AB grade fell to $199-$131 from $220-$153 last week.