We buy all of it
Whatever the coffee looks like. Smaller beans or a lower grade, we don't mark a farmer down or turn their coffee away.
Our story
Who grew your coffee?
Malawian Coffee Co started in Leeds in 2018 to fix a simple problem. Most coffee comes through long, vague supply chains, with ethical claims nobody can check. We want you to know exactly who grew the coffee in your cup, and to see them properly rewarded for it.
The farmers are the superstars of every cup.
A bag of coffee can say “ethically sourced” and mean almost anything. Beans change hands many times between the farm and the shelf, and by the end of the chain nobody can tell you who grew them or what they were paid.
We keep the chain short. We buy straight from a small group of smallholders near Mzuzu in northern Malawi, we name them, and we pay them around twice the market price. And as a social enterprise, every penny of our profit goes back to Malawi too.
Who's behind it
Started by Wani
Wani Mkandawire was born in northern Malawi and spent his early years in the same hills where our coffee grows. He wants people to know Malawi for its excellent produce and the talent of its people, not for the headlines.
That's Wani in Malawi in 2018, the year it all started.
The farm
From the hills above Mzuzu
Our coffee comes from Kennedy and his family, on their smallholding near Mzuzu in northern Malawi.
The trees grow at 1,500 to 1,600 metres. Every cherry is picked by hand in July and August, pulped, washed, and dried slowly in the sun on raised beds. This is our third harvest together.
Our first coffee, in 2018, was a Geisha from the Livingstonia Plateau, high above Lake Malawi. The Geisha trees there came from Ethiopia in the 1930s, and at the time we were the only ones bringing it out of Malawi.
How we buy
More of the value stays in Malawi
We used to process and ship our coffee through a long-established tea estate. We walked away, because that way of doing things keeps money out of farmers' pockets and keeps the processing skills out of their hands.
Now our coffee comes through a small cooperative of smallholders near Mzuzu. It's run by one of our farmers, Mr Chiumia, in Chigwere: four neighbours bring him their coffee, and he makes sure every batch is dried properly. Each year he invites in more farmers who grow good coffee, and this harvest we started buying from smallholders in Lukalazi too. That's six farmers now, and we'll buy more from Lukalazi in 2027.
We pay around twice the world market price for green coffee: about $12 a kilo, when the market price is close to $6. And it only passes through local hands in Malawi before it reaches the boat, so every bag is fully traceable. This year's coffee we drove across the border to the port ourselves, with our driver, his mechanic and our coffee manager.
- Price paid
- Double the market
- Farmers
- 6 smallholders
- Every bag
- Fully traceable
How we're different
What it means for a smallholder to sell their coffee to us.
Advances with no interest
Farmers can ask for money up front for picking, pruning and fertiliser. We pay it, and it simply counts as a deposit on their coffee. Other buyers charge 10–15% interest.
Paid within a week
Once Mr Chiumia has checked the coffee is good and dry, the farmer has the cash within a week. Too many buyers take the coffee and never come back to pay.
A buyer every year
We buy every year at a consistent price, so farmers know they have a buyer they can count on.
Kit when it's needed
Mr Chiumia asked for a scale to weigh the coffee accurately, so we bought him one. No charge.
Expert advice
We take Mzuzu Technical Research out to the farms to see the coffee and advise on growing, yield and drying.
100% of our profits go back to Malawi.
We buy straight from the farmers and pay more than a fair price. Then everything we make goes back to where the coffee comes from.
Here's where it has gone so far. This year, all of it has gone on education.
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2018
A new washing station
We paid for a washing station and a de-pulping machine for the farmers' co-operative, so more of the processing happens at source.
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2019
School fees
We paid full school fees for two boys, Yamanya and Laurente, from Bwengu, a farming village near where our coffee grows.
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2019
Saved By the Ball
Tennis kit and a tournament for a Malawian-run group that uses tennis to teach young people and share health messages.
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2022
Open Arms Malawi
All website profits went to Open Arms, which cares for orphaned and abandoned children in its infant homes and 9 community nursery schools.
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Until 2026
School fees for 10 children
We paid school fees for 10 children, 4 of them girls, until Malawi made school free in January 2026. One did so well they've been chosen for university.
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2026 and beyond
University
With school now free, we've moved on to university: the step that makes the difference for students bright enough to win a place. We're paying for one young woman's Business Administration degree and one student's postgraduate marketing qualification.
Money that stays
We spend our money in Malawi, too
Profit isn't the only money that goes back. Running the business means paying people in Malawi, and we do.
Our coffee was processed entirely by local people in Mzuzu. Twice a month we visit Mr Chiumia in Chigwere, always with the same local taxi driver. A watchman looks after the coffee at our small warehouse, which we rent from a local landlord. Our accountant, shipping agent and solicitor are local too.
Our designer is Thandi Phiri, known as Ujayo, a brilliant designer from Blantyre in southern Malawi. She designed the logo for our PanAfrica series and is drawing up ideas for future merch.
Roasted in Leeds
A Leeds roast
North Star Coffee Roasters opened in 2013 as the first specialty roastery in Leeds. They helped us build the roast profile for our Malawian beans.
They still roast our coffee today, so every bag is roasted in the same city where you'll find us at the markets on a Saturday.
Friends of the coffee
The cafés, shops and people who stock us, back us and help us along the way. Want to join them? Ask about wholesale.
- Bare
- Loaf
- Meanwood Barn
- Heart Space Headingley
- Natural Food Store
- Open Arms
- Ujayo Design
- Mindflick
- Haywood Smart Architects
- Spike Digital
- Play Tent
- Shiloh Coffee Roasters
- Active Bike Co