Nairobi · Kenya
Vava Coffee
Vava Coffee roasts in Nairobi, Nairobi County.
Since 2009 · Vava Angwenyi
Overview
Vava Coffee was founded in 2009 by Vava Angwenyi — a Q-grader, taekwondo black belt, and Western University-trained actuarial scientist — after she returned from her master's studies in the Netherlands and found that almost no one inside Kenya was working to make Kenyans value Kenyan coffee. The Nairobi-based social enterprise has paid 30,000 partner smallholders premiums averaging 57% above market and runs an offshoot 21-acre organic farm near Mount Kilimanjaro.
Known for
- Founder Vava Angwenyi — author of 'Coffee Milk Blood' on coffee's colonial supply chain
- Pays smallholder farmers ~57% above market price for specialty-grade microlots
- 30,000 partner farmers across Kenya — explicitly prioritizing women producers and Rift Valley women's lots
- Employs HIV-positive women and ex-offenders from Nairobi informal settlements
- Lapsed B Corp (2023) by choice; SCA-certified training lab on partner farm
Why it matters
One of the first Kenyan-owned operations to challenge the trader-driven export model from inside a producing country — Angwenyi consistently reframes Vava as 'trade not aid' and presses Kenyan farmers to taste their own product.
Production
- roastery location
- Nairobi, Kenya
Recognitions
- B Corp Best of the World — Community (lapsed 2023)
- Kiva flagship borrower