Today’s featured member, Wanjala Bifwoli, Co-Founder of Mikono Coffee, said that Mikono Coffee is a green coffee import company, with a mission to help grow direct-trade relationships between green coffee buyers in the Northwest and smallholder coffee farmers in Kenya. They believe that approach gives buyers access to more coffees at competitive prices while also providing farmers with fair pay for their harvest.
What does your Chamber membership mean to you and your company?
We have made great strides to get to where we are today, but Mikono Coffee is still very much in its infancy and we need to continue to grow to better serve our communities of coffee roasters and coffee farmers. Our Chamber membership has provided us with invaluable opportunities to network with other business owners and learn from their experience. The Chamber also shares insightful reports about market conditions and the needs of customers in the region that we have found useful to our business.
What does an equitable and inclusive regional economy look like to you?
Ideally, an equitable and inclusive regional economy would be one that is thriving well enough to support both big and small businesses. It would make it possible, and encourage, non-traditional types of businesses and business owners to enter the market. It would be one that provides resources for historically disadvantaged groups to build and expand. The people living in our region would have good paying jobs and would afford to patronize these businesses, own property and have financial autonomy which would mean autonomy to make decisions about other aspects of their lives.
Are there partnerships you are/your company is currently looking for?
Coffee trade is still very much exploitative in nature. Coffee farmers, in general, get disproportionately low pay for their crops and have little negotiating power. Small-volume coffee buyers on the other hand have relatively few options for whom to source their beans from and limited ability to trace the beans to origin.
Our approach to help address this complex problem is to facilitate closer relationships between buyers and growers. We would love to partner with more small and medium-sized roasters who are searching for alternative sources for relationship coffees from Kenya. We can be reached on our website.
Thank you to Mikono Coffee for being part of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce network. Here at the Chamber, we have 2,500 companies across the region and 13 different business sectors, from your favorite neighborhood restaurant to brands known around the world. Our member feature program is based on referrals. If you would like to learn more about how to be featured in our member features series, please contact Cori Lumens.