“Cultivating Prosperity, Nurturing Growth, Empowering Farmers, Impacting Lives”
Company motto
Location: Nyamagabe, Rwanda
Founding year: 2016
Number of employees: 36 permanent staff & +200 casual workers
Website: Trapro Coffee
Revenue: USD 600,000 (2023)
Investment ask: USD 500,000 - USD 1M
Investment needed to:
- Expand operations into new areas
- Grow loan portfolio to support farmers’ economic activities
- Conduct comprehensive training program on sustainable agricultural practices
Products and services:
- Provision of seedlings (coffee, macadamia, avocado), inputs and financial services
- Farmer trainings
- Direct sourcing of coffee from farmers
- Coffee washing, roasting and packaging
- Sale of high-quality coffees
Enterprise portrait
Bernard Uwitije grew up in a family of coffee farmers and observed the significant challenges faced by farmers — such as the labour-intensive process of planting, growing, and harvesting coffee, coupled with earning only a fraction of their rightful income. Bernard recognized the potential for fully washed specialty grade coffee for farmers and was inspired to act. After completing his university education, he chose to forgo a career in the pharmaceutical industry and instead founded Trapro Coffee in 2016.
Trapro Coffee began its journey with 400 farmers in the Southern Highlands of Rwanda. The company supplied coffee seedlings, microloans, and fertilizers to support coffee cultivation. In 2018, Trapro marked a milestone with its first harvest and the opening of its inaugural coffee washing station (CWS). Building on this success, the company expanded to another district, establishing a second washing station and partnering with various institutions to extend its services to thousands of other farmers.
Today, Trapro Coffee’s core mission is to empower coffee farmers by providing access to input financing, training in agricultural best practices, and market linkages, ultimately enabling them to increase their earnings and improve their livelihoods. They operate three CWS and collaborate with 7,000 farmers, helping them manage 2.5 million coffee, macadamia nut, and avocado plants across 900 hectares (as of 2025). In 2018, coffee from the company’s Gitega Hills washing station won the 2018 Cup of Excellence prize with an average score of 87.24.
Key commercial activities
- Sourcing of coffee: Trapro Coffee sources its coffee from +6,000 farmers in the Nyungwe Mountains, for which it applies a highly detailed ethical sourcing policy covering labour rights, environmental impact, fair trade and anti-corruption measures.
- Coffee aggregation, processing, distribution and sale: Trapro Coffee runs several coffee washing stations and a roastery where it processes high quality coffees. The company sells various coffee varieties and products under the Trapro Coffee brand, including green coffee, Robusta, Liberica, Arabica and Excelsa.
- Provision of inputs and financial services: Trapro Coffee supplies farmers with high quality coffee seedlings as well as microloans they can invest in their farms.
- Farming trainings: Trapro Coffee organizes trainings on Good Agricultural Practices for its supplying farmers. It also supports Farmer Field Schools.
Plans to grow the business
Trapro Coffee boasts a stable financial foundation, with 80% of company income coming from product sales. Between 2020 and 2023, company sales consistently increased by 5-10% year-over-year.
Looking ahead, the business has outlined an ambitious strategy. They aim to expand operations into the Western and Northern provinces and engage at least 20,000 more farmers in the next 3 years. As part of this expansion, Trapro Coffee aims to adopt digital software that will streamline their operations.
While coffee has been the business’ primary focus, they have in recent years been supplying macadamia and avocado seedlings to farmers along with relevant training. The company expects to diversify its products portfolio with the first harvest of these crops in 2026.
Agroecology impact highlights
Trapro Coffee puts fairness and dignified livelihoods at the heart of its business. Through vertical integration from aggregation to processing and then distribution, it removes intermediaries from its supply chain and provides farmers with a fair price and greater share of the final value of the coffee. As part of its model, Trapro implements a highly detailed ethical sourcing policy across its entire supply chain, covering labour rights, environmental impact, fair trade and anti-corruption measures.
Trapro provides fair wages to permanent staff and casual workers and promotes diversity in their hiring practices, holding a target of having 60% women in their workforce. The latter is supported by a comprehensive internal safeguarding policy against harassment and unfair treatment. All its employees’ contracts are reviewed by lawyers. Comprehensive health and safety signage is displayed in their facilities.
Trapro Coffee also works towards recycling biomass as much as possible. The company recycles coffee pulp from its washing stations into manure that they distribute to farmers, while left-over coffee husks are used to make cost-effective and environmentally friendly briquettes. After coffee washing, used water filled with coffee mucus and nutrients is used in composting. Trapro coffee also prioritizes the use of renewable energy and materials to the extent possible. Rainwater is collected and used at their CWS; older coffee washing machinery has been swapped for more water-efficient equipment. When it comes to coffee aggregation and distribution, they rely on their vehicle fleet that is 30% solar powered. The company also used biodegradable packaging for their products.
Trapro aims to promote the adoption of sustainable practices across its entire supply chain. At their Farm Field Schools, they train farmers on turning organic household waste into compost. As part of their training programmes, farmers are also trained on the conversion of household organic waste into compost and application of animal manure on their farms. Related to the latter, Trapro provides farmers with small ruminants, and for those unable to purchase the livestock, Trapro offers them microloans. As most of their suppliers farm on hilly terrain, anti-erosion practices are very important for Trapro. Moreover, the social enterprise encourages farmers to intercrop and have diversified cropping systems that include staples like soy, beans and sorghum alongside commodity crops. Trapro wants farmers to be food secure.
Current challenges
While the company has benefited from financing over the years, they remain in need of more capital to put into action their plan for expanding operations into other provinces in the country.
Financing track record
Over the year, Trapro Coffee has utilized a mix of grants, loans and pre-finance arrangements to fuel its growth. The company received a €21,000 grant from GIZ. It has received three separate pre-financing loans from Rwanda Trading Company (respectively worth €700,000, €850,000 and €1,000,000). Trapro Coffee has also taken a venture capital loan of €15,000 from Challenges Consulting Rwanda, as well as a bank loan worth €110,000 from Umutanguha Finance PLC.