Tanna Coffee Vanuatu

The Company was first established more than 40 years ago during Vanuatu's Independence, and it currently has extensive landholdings within the lush middle-bush area of Tanna Island, which is one of the 83 small Islands that form the Independent South Pacific Nation of Vanuatu. On the Tanna Coffee Estate, the Company grows, harvests, processes, roasts, packages, markets and distributes 100% pure Arabica Coffee to the local domestic market, where it currently has an exclusive 85% market-shareholding. We also regularly supply our roasted and packaged coffee to the much broader regional markets of Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa and the Solomon Islands. Tanna Coffee has progressively gained an international reputation, but unfortunately, we cannot supply outside of our region at this stage. International demand for Tanna Coffee has always outstripped the availability of supply and it is for this key reason, the Company is now seeking foreign investment in order to expand and further develop our singular Tanna Island production base, that will not only provide increased productivity and employment opportunities for farmers, but will also stimulate further agri-business development for the Island and the Country. 

With current annual production of our 100% pure Arabica Coffee at around 35tpa (it has been as high as 96tpa), there is an urgent need to greatly increase overall production dramatically, in order to satisfy demand. All of the current production is derived through the hard work of around 500 individual small-holder farmers and associated families from outside of the estate, who have been supported and empowered by the Company to become individual agricultural farming entrepreneurs. These external farming activities have been steadily developed and patiently implemented over the years, through the maximization of every available opportunity to incorporate value-addition methodology into the growing, harvesting, fermentation, washing and sun-dry processing of raw coffee beans into a dry parchment stage where it is then sold directly to the Company at around 3 times world-parity pricing at the farm-gate. This empowering methodology of inclusive agri-business helps enormously in improving the farming family livelihoods, child education and increased living standards for both themselves and their associated communities.

Therefore, the large 465Ha of prime agricultural land the Company owns on Tanna Island where only 10% of is currently productive, there is a strong desire to utilize the potential provided by encouraging agricultural development and productivity. It is envisaged that a comprehensive and inclusive agri-business farm development program could be established within the vacant areas of the Tanna Coffee Estate and the methodology for these developments would follow the same detailed inter-cropping regime currently implemented of short, medium and longer-term crops, along with small ruminant production, As a consequence, it is the positive results of the  small-scale success stories that provide the impetus to project the Company forward into these future developments, that will prove to be mutually beneficial.

By dividing large parts of the vacant Tanna Coffee Estate into individual 1Ha-2Ha farming blocks and implementing various areas of agricultural endeavour, we can provide many new small-holder farmers and youths of Tanna (both male & female) the opportunity to obtain (purchase under license) an individual block(s) of prime agricultural land located within the Estate, where they can establish and grow a fully sustainable and commercially viable small-holder farm under supervision. There are several agri-business concepts already trialed and detailed reports written, providing calculated proof regarding the positive cost-effectiveness of the proposed development program. Analysis has shown that a combination of several different farming systems and methodologies using different commodities, cash-crops and also animal husbandry, can provide great opportunities to maximize overall production potential, commercial income and profitability to be derived from each farm. .

Additionally, the Company has recently become a leading figure and primary producer within Vanuatu's Honey Industry through the provision of small-holder support and training, along with the supply of essential materials and honey processing equipment. The reasoning behind this was to re-establish Vanuatu's honey industry that had been devastated by an invasive bee species (which had not reached Tanna Island) and Queen Bee exports from Tanna is currently reversing the problem.  This program has been underway for the past 3 years and has developed dramatically, with production increasing from 25Kg to a sizeable 300Kg annually. This is potentially quite a thriving business opportunity that each small-holder Tanna Estate farmer could easily become firmly engaged in as well.