MASHA QUALITY HOLDINGS
Business Focus: Coffee bulking and Processing
Founder: Sylvia Achebet Boyo
Start date: 2019
Location: Kapchorwa district, Eastern Uganda
Website: www.mashacoffee.com
Masha quality Holdings was registered in 2016, and started operations in 2019. The company produces and markets coffee for other farmer groups through bulk marketing of Arabica coffee. The coffee is processed in three types: Washed coffee, honey coffee and Natural coffee.
The company is Female-founded and led, employing majorly women. There are three directors, five board members, six technical staff led by an agronomist, and, five field officers. The company also employs 10 youth who work on the farm temporarily.
Masha quality Holdings has a demonstration farm that sits on 40 acres. The Agri-business works with small scale farmers in Kween, kachorwa and bukwo districts, to amalgamate and centralize sales. The company has registered 1000 farmers and offers agricultural extension services to all farmers digitally registered in their agricultural database to ensure steady production and quality of sourced coffee across the five buying centres. The platform built by Masha does inventory management and monitors input for all the farmers registered.
Masha sells its coffee to café javas and on Jumia, and also exports to United States of America caffeine roasters, Cheque republic and Germany.
Some of the challenges the company faces include price fluctuation of agricultural products which makes planning on both the demand and supply side of the coffee value chain challenging – it makes it hard for the company to enter into forward contracts with suppliers. Additionally, lack of access to affordable and flexible finance to sustain production and operations despite the uncertainties in the coffee value chain is a pressing challenge.
In the next five years, the company hopes to acquire working capital to increase on their output during and off seasons, and venture into coffee processing.
