Consulting for Sustainability

Customized. Effective. Focused on coffee and economic development. 

Founder Ruth Church inspects natural coffee in Rwanda.

Profitable, Climate Smart and Gender Equal Coffee Processing. LEAN means: Achieving customer satisfaction through the most efficient use of time, water, machines, operators, coffee cherry, information, etc. The relentless pursuit, identification and elimination of waste!

"Lean at Origin" training and consulting delivers bottom-line results for producer organizations, exporters, importers… the entire value chain. 

Lean at Origin Overview

Lean At Origin Examples

  • 2021-2022

    Sustainable Growers Rwanda

    Invested ~ $30,000 in Lean Training for its three flagship cooperatives. Impacts included 13% reduction in floater cherries, tripled throughput of the depulping machine and 30% reduction in waste found in sinkers.

  • 2019

    Polus Center / Idjwi Island, DRC

    Lean at Origin training emphasizes anti-bias training for amputees and victims of DRC's civil war, in addition to quality improvements through waste reduction.

  • 2016-2017

    Trademark East Africa, Rwanda + Burundi

    Lean at Origin training included in larger Coffee Trade Efficiency program. Results include new differentiated pricing at at Kopakama, lean implementation at Horomama dry mill and new quality metrics at Dusangirijambo.

Assessment & Evaluation

  • Using participatory methods for impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, Artisan helps projects focused on coffee and development to measure their progress towards goals. The basic steps include selecting the right but few indicators, deploying tools and people to the field to collect relevant data and guiding project management with analysis of that data. Views and insights from target beneficiaries are gathered and help ensure project success.

    Previous clients include United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Cost Assessment

  • Artisan offers roasters and producers cutting-edge analysis of costs of production on the farm and at the processing mills. With a proven track record of measuring and reducing costs at both wet mills and dry mills in East Africa, Artisan is the right partner to support your company's sustainability initiative. What inspires us? The knowledge that rationalizing costs improves the ability to pay farmers for quality coffee.

    Past clients include Kopakama cooperative (Rwanda); Dusangirijambo (Burundi)

Business Planning

  • Start-ups are increasingly asked to demonstrate profitability and scalability on paper to their donors and investors. Artisan has delivered business plans resulting in funded operations for both the consuming side of coffee (e.g. Ethiopian Cupping Caravan) and the production side (plan for a women's coffee cooperative in Rwanda.)

    Past clients include the United Nations International Trade Commission and Boot Coffee.

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