KONGO COFFEE LIMITED

Kongo Coffee Ltd. is a locally owned coffee export company based primarily in Simbu province. Exportation of their coffee commenced in 1999, and the experienced team can produce up to 7200 tonnes of green coffee per year. With this volume, the mill has grown to include new processing lines imported from Pinhalense, in Brazil. This has made the mill the largest and most advanced in the country, and ensured a reputation for quality and reliability overseas. Over the years Kongo have been supporting several schools across the Simbu province. This includes funding for building development, resources, and school fee scholarships. In 2012, an Elementary school was officially named “Jerry Kapka Elementary School” is honour of our company’s support for schools and education in the community. Other projects included bringing television broadcast to their villages and paying to install one complete system in a village in remote Gumine, south Simbu. Actively supporting activities involving food production and planting within communities is also important. Most commonly, these are crops including oranges and rice and potato trainings and production. A community centre for their village was built, with Kongo sponsoring an annual gathering of community leaders to discuss various matters of concern for several years. Here at Allpress, PNG has always been a bit of an unsettled origin for us, in terms of procurement. Despite these challenges, over the last few years we have found a coffee that really works well for us, is indigenous owned, is consistently delicious, and we have been able to get our hands on more and more volume as we have become more and more impressed by the quality in the cup. Jerry Kapka, who was introduced to us through our good friends at Langdon Coffee Merchants, who have a strong relationship with Jerry going back over 10 years. Nuno, our Head of Coffee for the United Kingdom was also able to visit along with DR Wakefield. Over the years of our partnership we have seen a noticeable increase in their cup quality and, with that, the ability to increase the price paid to the local growers they work with. As his tribe’s leader, Jerry Kapka uses Kongo Coffee as a way to employ, support and give back to his tribespeople. Kongo Coffee currently processes and sells around 60,000 bags of coffee per season, with around two thirds of this volume heading to their primary buyer, Hamburg Coffee, in Germany. Relying so much on one company alone can be risky, and so Jerry hopes that visits from direct buyers like Allpress can help increase interest in Kongo and PNG coffees, give stability to purchasing and diversify the buyer portfolio. a. s. l. With two mills on site, they are able to process up to 8 tonnes of parchment every hour. Throughout the years a lot of investment in education and technology was done, with the installation of mechanical dryers and optical sorters. A stark difference from when Jerry first started trading and Simbu’s coffee was looked down on by other Highlands’ growers. Making your way further up the mountain to Kundiawa you’ll find a number of purchasing points set up by Kongo coffee where local growers are able to sell their crop, dropping off anything between 10 and 60 kilos each. Kongo have strict quality standards with purchasing and reject about 50% of deliveries due to poor quality. The buying and selling process is efficient, with all parchment being assessed for quality on site, separated into two grades, and payment being agreed on all in one visit. The remaining 40% is sold as commodity, but Jerry says, this is due to lack of buyers rather than a lack of quality; adding that he could sell up to 80% of their coffees into the specialty market, given the chance. Kongo Coffee contributes funds to the school quarterly, with further funding being provided at the end of each school year to host a large celebration for students and their families. In 2011 Kongo installed free, clean water for the school and local community to use and have a lot of other projects planned for future development and growth of the project. Two primary focuses for the immediate future include building of larger classrooms, with better and more long-lasting foundations as well as the installation of a solar panel system in order to provide renewable energy to power the school. This project is expected to cost up to 80k USD. DR Wakefiled, Allpress Espresso and St. They have 6k USD saved up so far. R. T. Espresso blend and from time to time we will feature an exceptionally tasty crop in our Single Origin program. We have also diversified into transport services, coffee shops and distribution of Bravilor Bonamat coffee brewing machines and accessories. With our experiences and commitments, we have built a very strong reputation with our overseas buyers for delivery of high quality products, first class services and reliability over the last two decades. With these latest developments, we now have the largest and most modern dry mill facility in Papua New Guinea; capable of producing high quality and big volumes of green bean coffee for our growing list of overseas buyers. Since the completion of our expansions and the installations to our dry mills, our volumes and the quality of our green beans have increased significantly. We started a small roast and ground coffee division within our operations in 2002 using a 4 kilo roaster. In 2013, we took a decision to invest in a new roasting facility comprising of a new building and a customized 50kg roasting and packing line. In addition to the commissioning, we had the benefit of onsite trainings for our staff conducted by a highly qualified coffee professional from Diedrich Roasters, the manufacturer of our roaster. By the end of November 2015, we have already roasted and supplied the local PNG market 30 tons of high quality coffee