Selling your coffee
How a smallholder's coffee reaches the market and how the Moshi auction works — in plain words, taking no side.
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How a smallholder's coffee reaches the market and how the Moshi auction works — in plain words, taking no side.
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Moshi is the home of Tanzania's coffee auction, and most of the hills around it grow arabica. It takes no side in any cooperative dispute — these are the facts of the system.
Moshi hosts the Moshi Coffee Auction — the country's central national trading floor for coffee, run by the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB). It usually runs once a week, on Thursdays, through the marketing season.
Licensed buyers bid for lots of coffee on the floor. Bidding is in US dollars and priced per 50 kilograms, and TCB sets a reserve price tied to the world (terminal) market so coffee is not sold below it. Payments for coffee sold pass through the Coffee Board. Only participants registered and licensed by TCB can trade on the floor.
Most smallholders sell through their AMCOS — the primary cooperative society — which collects members' cherry or parchment. The coffee is then dried and milled (cured) at a dry mill and graded by bean size, before it is sold. From there it takes one of two routes: through the Moshi auction to licensed exporters, or through the 'direct export window'. Both routes are registered with TCB.
It is a route where a union, cooperative society or estate sells coffee straight to a buyer without going through the auction, under a contract registered with TCB. The balance between the auction and direct sales has changed with government rules over the years, so it is worth checking what applies for the current season.
The Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (KNCU), which grew out of a 1925 planters' association and was registered in the early 1930s, is widely described as one of the oldest coffee cooperative unions in Africa. Many Kilimanjaro growers still market their coffee through member societies of a union like this. How well a particular society or union serves its members is a live debate among farmers — that is a choice for growers, not something this page judges.
Tanzania's coffee marketing year runs from July to June. On Kilimanjaro the arabica harvest is mainly mid-year, roughly June to August, and the Moshi auctions then run weekly from about August into the following May. Exact dates shift year to year with the harvest.
Yes. Growing and selling coffee is regulated by TCB under the Coffee Industry Act. Smallholders market through a registered AMCOS or cooperative, and buyers and exporters must hold a TCB licence. Your primary society is the place to ask about registration.
Full results are sent to licensed participants after each sale, and per-grade prices are usually reported in the Tanzanian press in the days after an auction. The Tanzania Coffee Board (coffeeboard.or.tz) is the official source for the rules and the auction calendar.
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