Colombian Innovative Entrepreneurship Sells Coffee in Individual Filter Sachets
Colombian Innovative Entrepreneurship Sells Coffee in Individual Filter Sachets
Coffee Network (Bogota) – In Colombia, coffee entrepreneurships such as Kolado Caffee are changing the way locals drink the beverage at the world’s third-largest coffee producing nation.
This company created in 2018 sells high-quality specialty Colombian roasted and grounded non-instant coffee in individual filter bags, called “sachets” that facilitate preparation at any time and place.
The company buys the coffee from coffee producers in the San Juan de la China town in the central province of Tolima, a community previously embattled by the former guerrilla group FARC, who demobilized in 2016. Some 32 coffee growing families have benefited as they have obtained a surcharge on their beans, said Maria Isabel Mejia, general manager and founding partner of Kolado Caffee.
“This is certified Tolima coffee origin with high quality and export- type of coffee. We grind the coffee beans and we put them in bags that we call fils (sachets),” Mejia told Coffee Network, noting that the practicality of the product is that the beverage does not need machines, instead it adds hot water or milk to obtain the drink.
Kolado Caffee has a producing plant in the north skirts of Bogota where it produces 100 sachets of specialty coffee per minute, each containing 5.25 grams of coffee. The company’s annual processing capacity is 48 tons/year, which is equivalent to approximately 6.7 million sachets. Kolado Caffee is currently processing approximately 2.5 tons of coffee per year, which is equivalent to approximately 450,000 sachets per year. The coffee is sold in an attractive box containing 20 sachets each.
Kolado Caffee bills itself as the only company in Colombia that sells coffee in sachets, an idea taken from a trip to Argentina where coffee is also sold in such a way. Currently, in the world there are four companies that sell coffee in sachets including New Zealand, Argentina and England.
In Colombia, the product is sold at airplanes of the country’s flagship airline Avianca as well as at the local unit of Chilean- based Yumbo hypermarket, among other places.
The company exported 1,600 boxes of roasted and ground non instant coffee to the US as well as to Panama..
The company was on the verge of exporting the product to a client in the Arab Emirates, but the pandemic arrived in 2020 derailing such plans.
Kolado Caffee has annual sales of around COP500 million ($119,200), but the company acknowledges that 2024 was a difficult year due to the slowdown of the economy and the reduction of disposable income among Colombians.
“We sell COP500 million annually, and have already reached the break-even point. But this business to become massive must have a huge marketing and advertising,” she noted.
Kolado Caffee sells regular high-quality coffee in sachets, but also flavored coffee with vanilla and coffee flavored with cinnamon and panela. Panela in Spanish or rapadura in Portuguese is an unrefined whole cane sugar, typical of Latin America. They also sell coffee husks in sachets that have antioxidants that decrease the levels of glucose in the blood and produce injection of oxygen in the muscles. “This product has been an incredible success,” she noted. They are also selling decaffeinated coffee in sachets.
The company says their product is sustainable with the environment as the thread tip and the sachets bags are made from biodegradable cotton fiber.
Colombians are consuming 2.2 kilos per capita of coffee per year, but the coffee growers federation FNC sees increasing consumption with the aim of reaching 3kg per capita in the near future.
“Local consumption is growing by 10% in volume, while in value coffee consumption is advancing by 25%. We should soon reach 3kg per capita,” the general manager of the coffee growers federation German Bahamon said in December during the coffee growers federation annual conference.
Coffee Network will continue to publish coffee entrepreneurship stories like this one amid a myriad of innovative projects.
By Diana Delgado
