By Henry Kinyua
In this sale 7674 bags equivalent of 473;769 kgs of coffee were traded at an average value of $195 per 50kg bag or $3.9per Kg. The total value $1,847,579 or ~277Million Ksh.
Seven agents brought coffee to the market with New KPCU leading with 3,314 bags which is 43% followed by Meru County Coffee Marketing Agency with 1269 bags which is 17%, Kiambu Coffee Marketing at 12%, Alliance Berries Limited at 10%, Mt Elgon Coffee Marketing Agency at 7%, Kipkelion Broker Company at 6% and Kinya Coffee Marketing Agency at 6%.
With regard to buyers, 17 companies participated with top 4 companies Ibero, Taylor Winch, Jowam and Sasini buying 67% of the coffee at the auction.
Top grades AA and AB were 40% of volumes traded.
The highest price paid for a 50kg bag of coffee was $337 or $6.7 per Kg for only 463 bags which is 6%.
So far the high number of low grades C and others as I observed last week is indicative of a not very good season. Overall volumes are likely to be low. This is not surprising since we had drought at the beginning of the year at the critical stages of flowering and berry development leading to low volumes and low quality. But let’s wait and see…
Someone asked me last week if we have a crisis in the coffee market . My opinion is that we had a crisis before but currently there is none. I will elaborate this in another article later.
For now, all serious coffee players are in Nyeri for the Nyeri International Coffee Expo, you should also plan to attend.
