The umbrella body of 14 primary coffee cooperatives — the voice of 120,000 smallholder farmers, from cherry to cup.
Founded in 1959, Kirinyaga County Cooperative Union Ltd represents 14 primary coffee cooperatives on the fertile southern slopes of Mt. Kenya. We carry the farmer's voice through the entire value chain — milling at Kirinyaga County Coffee Mill Ltd, trading through Kirinyaga Slopes Coffee Brokerage Co. Ltd.
Stand-in — original KCCU photography to follow
Precision hulling, grading and cup-profiling at Kirinyaga County Coffee Mill Ltd.
Visit the MillMembers' lots traded at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange through our CMA-regulated brokerage.
The Brokerage 03 / Direct 03Union-led marketing connecting Kirinyaga lots with roasters and importers worldwide.
Available Stocks
Commercial property investments generating diversified, sustainable member income.
Our Investments
Where parchment becomes green gold — meticulous milling and grading under farmer ownership.
Mandated to sell members' coffee through the Nairobi Coffee Exchange — with weekly published results.
120,000+ smallholders on volcanic slopes at 1,400–1,900m.
65 wet mills wash and sun-dry the cherry to parchment.
Hulling, grading and cupping at our county mill.
Lots trade weekly at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange.
Returns flow back through societies to the farmer.
Cherry picked on a member’s smallholding reaches the Nairobi Coffee Exchange as a graded, cupped lot. Every step below happens inside the Union — at one of 65 factories, at our mill in Kerugoya, or in our own laboratory.
Members hand-pick only ripe red cherry, garden by garden, through the main crop from October to December.
Cherry is weighed in at the factory the same day it is picked and recorded against the member number.
Disc pulpers strip the skin and separate the cherry into grades by density before fermentation begins.
Parchment rests in tanks so the mucilage breaks down — the step that sets Kirinyaga acidity.
Parchment is washed through grading channels in river water, which separates it once more by density.
Parchment dries on raised beds for up to three weeks, turned by hand and covered through the mid-day sun.
Dry parchment comes to the Union mill in Kerugoya, where hulling and cleaning release the green bean.
Screens and gravity tables sort the bean into AA, AB, PB, C, E, TT and MBUNI before it is weighed into lots.
Every outturn is roasted and cupped in the Union laboratory, and the score follows the lot to the auction floor.
We believe the future of coffee is with its founders — the farmers. Our governance is vested in them, through directors appointed from every primary society.Kirinyaga County Cooperative Union Farmer-owned since 1959
