About Us
Our Mission
African Coffee Trading Group’s (ACT) mission is to become a major source of premium/specialty African grown coffee that incorporates within its business practices a focus on the overall economic health, education and self sufficiency of African coffee farmers. “IT TAKES HARD TO PRODUCE GREAT COFFEE” and we believe that everyone in our supply chain should be fairly compensated.
We are dedicated to achieving our mission by leveraging over 20 years of experience by ACT’s president, Matti Foncha in:
- Cameroon coffee crop development and its distribution in the specialty coffee market
- Developing partnership with over 300 coffee farmers in the North West coffee region of Cameroon and key coffee production value chain participants
Despite the wealth being generated in the coffee industry, the average coffee farmer continues to live in poverty. The historic trade model includes multiple levels of middlemen were each middleman takes a profit leaving little for the farmer that creates the commodity. However, ACT through its collaborative approach with its farmers as described below, is enabling them to raise their standards of living.
The “Collaborative Trade” practised by ACT and its farmers goes beyond the so-called “Fair Trade” program which many consumers have come to embrace as an economic liberator for smallholder farmers. Our Collaborative Trade process considers the complete coffee cycle in determining the labor and skill inputs as well as the financial outlay necessary to get the coffee to market. Market proceeds are then distributed to the our farmers and their partners.
ACT trade collaboration process fosters a more financially balanced paradigm. Our approach is simple – we afford our farmers the opportunity of partnering with us and maintaining ownership of their coffee during the entire trade process. The result is that our farmers are fairly compensated for their labor production skills as well as their shared market risk.