The **Belco Ethiopia agency already boasts 10 years of active on-the-ground sourcing**. The team focuses on the two key missions of effective sourcing: **quality and traceability**. Once sourced, coffee must be imported, and we ensure all necessary follow-up. Throughout the year, we meet with coffee producers. **We initiate a dialogue through which we strive to understand their specific characteristics, the terroir, and also work towards product improvement.** This allows us to offer you **meaningful quality coffees** that will **enable you to differentiate yourself.**
Identity record
City
Addis-Abeba year of creation
2015 Effective
11
“Quality sourcing is possible only if we work together in the supply chain. In our experience, for an industry to generate business for artisan roasters and SMEs who care about quality, everyone’s interests must be protected. So it’s all about supporting our customers effectively from the outset.”
Forest Coffees® occupy a unique place.
Launched a few years ago with the active support of all our Belco teams and roasters, the concept has now matured and grown in solidity. Ethiopia has two great strengths, not found anywhere else: a rich environmental heritage and farming practices that have been perfected over time. The Forest Coffees® brand was our Ethiopia branch’s first major venture.
Our coffees begin their journey in Ethiopia’s highlands. The country boasts not only a vast reservoir of wild coffee varieties, but also the necessary environment, with its famous high-altitude forests. The coffee agroforestry systems as we know them emerged from this combination of plant heritage and local Ethiopian know-how. With the help of people on the ground, the coffee industry has made these forests productive, effectively ensuring the preservation of their heritage.
We are encouraging producers to continue down this path by educating them on active canopy management. For example, we have begun setting up nurseries to renew shade trees more efficiently. These projects are already in place in Goma and Gera, thanks to Mustafa Mohamed Ali and Khalid Shifa, as well as at the Tatmara farm in Kaffa. We are working to further develop this type of initiative and to give roasters a more active role.
Explore EthiopiaJimma / Kaffa
Our team on the ground
Jacques
Sourcing Expert & Manager of Belco East Africa
Jacques, a trained geographer, is our Belco sourcing expert. Without his knowledge of Ethiopia and its geographical and geopolitical issues, and without his daily involvement with local producers, we wouldn’t be able to supply you with Ethiopia’s finest coffees. Exceptional cups showcasing the ancestral know-how of our coffee farmers.
Our quality team follows the growth of each coffee from tree to repotting in Addis Ababa, carrying out numerous controls. We also run training programmes to help our partner producers improve and master quality. We analyze, roast and cup all our samples.
Fantanesh
Quality Manager, Q Grader
Naomie
Quality Assistant
Shambe
Field Coordinator
Meded
Agricultural Engineer
Our field team focuses on agronomy, monitors processes and manages projects.
We all oversee the harvest, visiting growers weekly during this period to develop a purchasing strategy in line with the realities on the ground.
Bethel
Marketing & Export Coordinator
Our logistics department is responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of FOB deliveries. Our marketing team gathers information to better understand the coffees on offer and their production context.
Sourcer's word
"The Belco Ethiopia team has been built over the past ten years around **passionate individuals** recognized in the coffee world. All of us **share a love for the product and the country where this magnificent plant was born**, Coffea arabica. All our experience and expertise are **at the service of artisan roasters wishing to source quality coffees with traceability** that allows understanding the environment in which quality coffees are produced. There are still many terroirs to discover and promote in Ethiopia. With the support of artisan roasters, our role is to highlight them."
Jacques Chambrillon, Director of Belco Ethiopia Agency