Coffee value chain players use AI to sample their commodity
By Nicholas Waitathu
Coffee value chain players in the country stand to save significant earnings out of costs incurred during sampling of their coffee at Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE), thanks to an intent to introduce a digital cupping technology.
The new technology -ProfilePrint Food Technology is designed to reduce cost suffered when physically assessing coffee samples and taming carbon emissions tied to logistics.
Further the new skill will incorporate use of AI Analysis and rapidly identifies and evaluates quality without physical samples.
Being introduced in the country by a Singapore based startup -ProfilePrint Food Tech Company in partnership with Jabali The Coffee Co Ltd, a Kenyan-based coffee export company, the innovation will equally contribute to reduction of time spent in sampling coffee.
Alan Lai, Founder and Chief Executive of ProfilePrint, during a demonstration of the new technology to coffee stakeholders in a Nairobi hotel, said use of AI to analyse, authenticate, and taste-profile food ingredients in coffee will add up to farmers earning high premium prices in the local and international markets.
“In terms of strategic value, the new coffee cupping technology is expected to contribute to cost savings, by cutting millions in sample shipping expenses. Enables faster transactions and trade decisions in the market and guarantees competitive edge as early adoption offers differentiation in global agribusiness,” said Lai.
Currently, Lai explained Profile Print is applicable in over 80 locations across six continents of the world, from destination locations to production locations.
He added, his company is targeting Africa owing to increasing demand for high-quality coffee beans; with the soaring prices being witnessed.
“We help our producers and exporters digitalise coffee beans at the green bean level so that potential buyers can now make assessments without physically having the coffee bean. This is not just digital cupping. It is digitizing coffee beans so that it can help speed up cupping.”
Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) Chief Executive Officer, Lisper Ndung’u, said that one of the challenges that coffee traders have been grappling with is that sampling of their coffee comes at a fee.
“This new technology could help make the profiles of all the coffee samples available to as many traders as possible, therefore increasing the competition element, which will in turn perhaps lead to better price discovery for Kenyan coffee,” she said.
Although the technology will not be for free, Ndung’u said the technology could contribute to significant reduction in sample feed charged to traders.
Felix Muriithi Mwai, National Coffee Cooperative Union (NACCU) chairperson said the technology could be a game changer and thus benefit more farmers.
“It is important for our farmers to start understanding the coffee from the farm to the final point of the value chain. Currently, farmers’ lacks information on how their clean beans are moved along the value chain. The taste of the coffee is totally different, but if we are able to have a technology that is able to profile the coffee from the production point of view, from our brokerage companies, from our county mills, and from our society, I think it would be good for us. We remain very open to the technologies and cannot dismiss technologies,” he added.
