Kenya’s Java House has announced that it has entered into a deal to export coffee and tea to a Chinese online retail company. The deal is part of the coffee chain’s expansion plans.
In May, Java House told Reuters that it plans on increasing the number of outlets in its domestic market two-fold over the next two years prior to expanding in East Africa and beyond.
The first Java House coffee shop was opened in Nairobi in 1999 and the number of outlets has grown to 57 across three East African countries since then. The majority of these stores are in Kenya.
Last year, the company was bought by Abraaj, a private equity firm that has been undergoing a court-led restructuring process amidst allegations of misappropriation of funds.
The Exportation Deal
Under the new deal to export coffee and tea, the Java House chief executive Paul Smith said the company will export ten to 15 tonnes each month of its 375-gram bags of AA Arabic Kenyan coffee and Gold Label Tea to China through Green Chain owned by C.J. Smart Cargo International.
Java House also exports macadamia nuts from Kenya to China and is focused on exporting high-quality agricultural products to Asia.
“Some of our biggest sales of bagged coffee at our restaurants in Kenya are actually to Chinese customers, so why not take it directly to them?” he said.
The Chinese market is increasingly shifting to a coffee drinking culture even though it is traditionally a tea-drinking country. As a result, companies like Costa Coffee and Starbucks have moved into the Asian nation in recent years.
“Starbucks and Costa really initiated a developing trend of people (in China) drinking espresso-based coffee”, Smith said.
