YA Coffee Roasters focuses on the specialty and premium coffee market, roasting at origin and sourcing directly from smallholder farmers, mainly women. Sara Yirga, founder and manager of YA Coffee, is developing partnerships with her suppliers to bring meaningful change in terms of coffee skills that help women farmers grow their production capacity and thus improve their livelihoods.
In 2019, YA Coffee signed its first supply agreement with KEBERTA TIGILFRE, a women’s coffee farmers cooperative which is a member of the BENCH MAJI Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. KEBERTA TIGILFRE’s 104 members (as of 2020) grow their coffees on 560 hectares of forest and semi-forest producing over 180 metric tons annually.
To ensure high quality coffee, YA Coffee’s agreement with KEBERTE TIGILFRE aims to:
- Build sustainable relationships with the women coffee farmers by investing in capacity building
- Offer premium payment of at least 10% more that the export price on the day of transaction
- Establish a state-of-the-art natural coffee processing model site at KEBERTA's location
– and as a result –
- Ensure a reliable supply of specialty coffee.
Just Ethiopian Coffees will continue to buy its coffee from YA Coffee Roasters to guarantee that the benefits of the full value chain remain in Ethiopia and continue to build its specialty coffee sector.