Coffee value chain players in the country stand to save significant costs incurred during sampling of their produce at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, thanks to the introduction of new cupping technology.
The new technology, ProfilePrint Food Technology, will help in reducing costs suffered when physically assessing coffee samples and taming carbon emissions tied to logistics.
Further, the new skill will incorporate the use of AI analysis and rapidly identify and evaluate quality without physical samples.
Being introduced in the country by a Singapore-based startup, ProfilePrint Food Tech Company, in partnership with Jabali the Coffee Co. Ltd., a Kenyan-based coffee export company, the new technology will equally contribute to the reduction of time required in sampling coffee.
Alan Lai, Founder and CEO of ProfilePrint, during a demonstration of the new technology in a Nairobi hotel, said use of AI to analyse, authenticate, and taste-profile food ingredients in coffee will add up to farmers earning high premium prices in the local and international markets.
“In terms of strategic value, the new coffee cupping technology is expected to contribute to cost savings by cutting millions in sample shipping expenses. Enables faster transactions and trade decisions in the market and guarantees a competitive edge as early adoption offers differentiation in global agribusiness,” said Lai.
Coffee cupping is a standardised sensory evaluation method used by professionals and enthusiasts to assess coffee aroma, flavour, acidity, body, and overall quality.
Lai said the idea behind ProfilePrint grew out of a familiar frustration in agricultural markets: adding better quality at origin does not always translate into better pricing for the producer.
“We help our producers and exporters digitalise coffee beans at the green bean level so that potential buyers can now make assessments without physically having the coffee beans. This is not just digital cupping; this is digitising coffee beans so that it can help speed up cupping.”
Lai explained, “But more importantly, it allows a producer to reach a market that was previously extremely hard to reach because the data that are inside the coffee beans that you grow can now correlate to a market demand that can be different from diverse locations.”
With the new assessment that is molecularly correlating to the quality that the buyers are looking for, Lai said you can now make better decisions to decide how much to price, which market to price for, and which potential buyer you want to sell to.
Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) Chief Executive Officer Lisper Ndung’u welcomed the new technology, saying it is likely to significantly reduce costs of sampling coffee in the central room based in Nairobi.
She noted that one of the challenges that coffee traders have been having is that sampling of their coffee comes at a fee and is certified, and this is a barrier to trade.
“This technology of profile print could help make the profiles of all the coffee samples available to as many traders as possible, therefore increasing the competition element, which will in turn perhaps lead to better prices discovered for Kenyan coffee by the Kenyan coffee farmers,” she said.
Although the technology will not be for free, Ndung’u said the technology could contribute potentially, and should the sector accept it in a centralised way of determining the quality of coffee at the market level, it could determine to share costs and could reduce the cost of samples perhaps significantly.
The NCE normally manages the central sample room for Kenyan coffee, where coffee sampling is done by growers through their brokers, providing a sample of every lot that is being offered for sale, and then traders coming into the exchange sample room collect the sample and carry out their independent price discovery pre-auction process, which is the cupping, to determine the quality of the coffee.
Felix Muriithi Mwai, National Coffee Cooperative Union (NACCU) Chairperson, said if the technology is well tested and proven, it could be of benefit to the farmers.
“It is important for our farmers to start understanding the coffee from the farm to the final value chain actor because today, as it is, farmers don’t know when we tell them the coffee is bought through different cup scores; the testing of the coffee is totally different, but if we are able to have a technology that is able to profile the coffee from the production point of view, from our brokerage companies, from our county mills, and from our society, I think it would be good for us. We remain very open to the technologies and cannot dismiss technologies,” he added.
Muriithi noted that since the demonstrators of the technologies indicated that they have been used by multinationals in the coffee value chain and are proven to be good, then they should be able to have an accommodative structure in terms of cost to the producers down the value chain, who are very important.
“Understanding of our coffee enhances the willingness and acceptance of our coffee farmers. Today, coffee farmers don’t understand the coffee when it’s being sold at the NCE. They don’t realise the cherry they deliver at the factory is not the same as the coffee that is being sold since at the NSE, we sell green beans, which weigh one kilo, made from six kilos of water that they deliver to the factory, and thus this technology is going to help us understand our coffee better. Muriithi explained.
Today Profile Print is deployed in over 80 locations across six continents of the world, from destination locations to production locations.
According to Lai, they are now in Africa since there is great demand for high-quality coffee beans, and with the soaring prices being witnessed, this is the best opportunity to be able to match the molecules of what the growers are producing here to be able to reach the potential market.
By Wangari Ndirangu
