Ephtah Specialty Coffee was established to build sustainable collaborative supply chains for the benefit of our customers, farmers, and their wider communities. We take a specific interest in promoting the role of women within our industry, as we see women as being the main driver of positive social and economic change in Ethiopia.
Our passion is delivering fantastic coffee whilst improving the lives of the people in the communities we work in.
Our aim is to deliver quality at every step of the shipment. We focus on only supplying the highest quality green coffee beans. We provide a high-quality niche service to our clients and partners, ensuring all stakeholders in the supply chain are happy at the end of every shipment.
Anyone who has visited a coffee processing site in Ethiopia will know that women are integral to the industry. Most of the low paying seasonal labour is provided by women but very few farms are women owned. In addition, those farms are often less productive as women have less access to resources – primarily inputs, finance, and training.
Our approach has four main pillars
1. We hire women where we can – specifically we put women in leadership positions, most of our management team are women.
2. We provide training programs around production and quality analysis to help improve women’s knowledge and confidence. This often leads to an improvement in their access to finance which can lead to dramatic improvements in their standard of living.
3. We create safe spaces for women in the communities we source from. We collaborate with local groups to encourage women in the community to become involved in local decision- making processes and leadership positions.
4. Through Ama Commitment scheme, we provide women with alternative sources of income.
Ama Commitment is our social impact project. It provides women farmers with an alternative source of income through the set up of a handicrafts centre. During the busy harvest season we have also set up a day care centre enabling our women farmers have a safe place for their young children to play and learn.
This is our first year working with Gizaw. Gizaw owns a 2 hectare site with 150 drying beds near Hambella, Guji.
His coffee really stood out to us this year. It is a smooth natural with cupping notes of strawberry and intense tropical fruits.
We helped Gizaw this year by financing the purchase of his red cherry. We also donated flotation tanks to ensure he could improve the quality of his coffee.
