Vunga completes updates to the washing station's infrastructure

Vunga is a well-established small cooperative who recently partnered with Muraho Trading Company to help the station increase quality, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and to introduce their production to new markets. Vunga is a well-known washing station, though it is located in an area in Rwanda, Nyabihu, where very little coffee is produced. The station has a reputation of producing extremely high-quality coffee, coming 4th in the Rwandan Cup of Excellence in 2014.

Interestingly, for many years, Vunga was a washing station without the traditional serpentine infrastructure, which is used for the washing and sorting of beans post-pulp. Foregoing this processing step, beans were placed in fermentation tanks, and rinsed before being spread out to dry.

The station wanted to improve infrastructure, which was only feasible through a return that would allow funds to be saved. Working with Muraho Trading Co, meant that Raw Material was able to pay a premium of $0.35 USD per kilo of milled green coffee to the Vunga cooperative, in order to help fund infrastructure upgrades. This sum totalled of 2 million Rwandan Francs (~$2,400 USD before tax).

2017 saw Vunga post their highest ever profit as a result of selling their coffee through Muraho Trading Co and Raw Material, and have reinvested a total of 6 million Francs from these profits toward the upgrades. MTCo financed a further 6 million Rwandan Francs to Vunga in order to complete the work. The roughly $18,000 USD was able to go towards increasing the dry storage capacity of the station, construction of a new serpentines, new fermentation tanks, and a doubling of the number of drying tables.