Akonkwa Mulihano Joseph, Akonkwa Mountain Coffee founder, showcasing his coffee. Photo: Patrick Kahondwa, bird story agency
Young entrepreneurs in South Kivu are building a domestic market for Congolese coffee by processing beans locally, strengthening their brands and encouraging consumers to buy locally. Their businesses are creating opportunities for young people and women while reducing reliance on export markets.
By Patrick Kahondwa, bird story agency
Every working day at Akonkwa Mountain Coffee in Bukavu begins with young employees gathered around beans grown in the hills and islands of South Kivu.
Some sort the coffee, removing defective beans before roasting. Others roast and grind it, fill packets and prepare orders for supermarkets, cafés, hotels and independent shops. In another part of the business, staff track sales and ensure that packets reach outlets in Bukavu and, through freight agencies, customers as far away as Goma and Kinshasa.
For Yvonne Rusimane, who studied economics at university, the small processing company has provided a way to apply her training without leaving the coffee-producing region where she lives.
“Since the company also needed an economist to support its economic activities, including market research and product marketing, this has become part of my day-to-day work,” said Rusimane, Akonkwa Mountain Coffee’s sales and marketing officer. “I make sure that customers’ needs are met and that our products are available at different points of sale.”
Her work is part of a new effort to build a domestic market for a crop that South Kivu has traditionally grown largely for export. The shift has become more urgent as armed conflict has made access to farms and international buyers less predictable.
Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, was captured by AFC/M23 forces in February 2025. Commercial life continues, but fighting and armed groups in surrounding areas can restrict access to coffee-growing communities and make transporting beans riskier and more expensive.
The threat remains current. In May 2026, a Médecins Sans Frontières team was caught in a security incident while travelling in Mwenga territory. Although the team returned safely to Bukavu, the incident illustrates the conditions entrepreneurs face when sourcing supplies from beyond the city.
Akonkwa Mountain Coffee founder, Akonkwa Mulihano Joseph, believes part of the answer lies in shortening the distance between producer and consumer.
Founded in 2024, the company operates a processing facility in Bukavu and works through washing stations in Kabare, Kalehe and Idjwi territories. It employs 10 young people – six women and four men – and says it sources coffee through a network of more than 1,500 farmers.
Mulihano built the business around three linked goals: helping farmers reach local and international markets, improving the quality of their coffee and encouraging more Congolese people to drink coffee grown and processed in their own country.
“Something had to be done so that farmers could continue to benefit despite the absence of international buyers,” he said.
South Kivu is one of the DRC’s principal Arabica-producing regions. Its highlands have attracted cooperatives, international traders and speciality-coffee buyers, but much of the value chain has been oriented outwards. A 2025 study by Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems on the mismatches in the coffee value chain in South Kivu found that most coffee was exported, leaving producers highly dependent on political conditions, traders, roasters and international prices.
The same research identified local processing and consumption as a way for Congolese enterprises to retain more value and reduce that exposure. It also cautioned that its consumer sample represented mainly young, middle- to upper-middle-income coffee enthusiasts, rather than the population as a whole. Reliable national data on how much coffee Congolese people consume remains limited.
For Mulihano, however, the opportunity is visible in individual shops.
Papy Ayigirhwe, who owns a coffee shop in Bukavu, began stocking Akonkwa’s products partly because he wanted to support a business run by young people. He said imported brands had previously dominated the shelves and cups of many local cafés.
“I decided to give locally produced Congolese coffee a try, and honestly, customers really appreciate it and are gradually getting used to it,” he said.
At first, most customers ordering the local coffee were foreigners. That is changing, Ayigirhwe said, as more Bukavu residents taste it.
“Once they discover that it is good-quality coffee, they are starting to drink it more regularly,” he said. “They appreciate it not only because it is affordable, but also because of its quality.”
Awareness remains a barrier. Many customers do not yet recognise local brands, he said, but tasting creates an opening that advertising alone cannot.
“Once they try it, I believe they will not want to drink another coffee.”
Competing with imported products requires more than patriotic appeals. Mulihano said the company trains farmers to harvest only ripe cherries so that unripe fruit does not introduce defects into the final cup. At the processing stage, workers sort beans, roast and grind the coffee locally and package it for the retail market.
For exports, operators must also meet documentation, traceability and quality requirements. Mulihano said these can include proof of origin, quality clearance from the national coffee authorities and, where a buyer requires it, third-party certification such as organic certification. Traceability is especially important in eastern DRC, where informal cross-border trade has long made it difficult to distinguish legally marketed coffee from smuggled produce.
The emphasis on quality reflects a wider lesson from recent research: Congolese coffee drinkers, like consumers elsewhere, care strongly about taste and the drinking experience. The 2025 South Kivu study found that local consumers and roasters were interested in the sensory quality and pleasure associated with coffee, not only its origin or social impact.
That makes roasting, consistency, attractive packaging and reliable supply central to the domestic-market strategy.
The opportunity extends beyond one company. In Kalehe territory, Heshima Coffee is using a cooperative model to connect farming, processing and new products.
Established in 2017, Heshima works with more than 250 farmers, most of them women. It sells roasted coffee in Bukavu and other provinces and has diversified into products including coffee-based soap. According to cooperative member Lydia Kahiriri, the initiative was created partly to give women and young people routes into paid work across the value chain.
It is also trying to change how agricultural work is perceived.
“Some people thought that working with a hoe was degrading, but with Heshima Coffee we have changed that perception,” Kahiriri said.
For members, coffee provides income at several stages: cultivating and harvesting cherries, processing beans and developing consumer products. This spreads opportunity more widely than the sale of unprocessed coffee alone and gives the cooperative more than one possible source of revenue when a particular market weakens.
Yet both Heshima and Akonkwa face the same central test: producing locally does not automatically persuade consumers to buy locally.
Kahiriri said imported coffee can still be perceived as superior, even when Congolese products meet demanding quality standards. Changing that perception requires businesses to improve both the product and the way it is presented.
Economist Déogratias Cubaka, who lectures at the Official University of Bukavu, said South Kivu’s businesses need to invest in sorting, roasting, modern processing, packaging, marketing and communication if they are to compete consistently with foreign brands. Organising farmers into cooperatives could lower some costs, while improved production methods could raise quality and yields.
Public policy could accelerate the shift through access to finance, tax incentives for processors, support for cooperatives and procurement programmes that give locally made products a fair opportunity. Such measures would help businesses move beyond small batches and irregular distribution.
Building the domestic market will not replace exports. International sales remain important for bringing revenue into farming communities, and restored security would make it easier for farmers and buyers to reconnect. But local consumption can give producers a second market rather than leaving them dependent on a single route that conflict or price movements can close.
It can also keep more of the work – roasting, grinding, packaging, branding and sales – inside the DRC.
Back at Ayigirhwe’s coffee shop, that strategy is measured one cup at a time. A packet processed by young workers in Bukavu and filled with beans bought from South Kivu farmers becomes a drink ordered by a local customer. The transaction is modest, but repeated across cafés, hotels, shops and homes, it begins to create the dependable market that Mulihano and Kahiriri are trying to build.
For a sector accustomed to looking abroad for its buyers, the growing presence of Congolese coffee in Congolese cups offers something valuable: another way to keep farms producing, young people working and local businesses moving even when the road to the international market becomes uncertain.
bird story agency
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