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SCAA Certified Ethiopian Coffee Quality Control Laboratory

Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), the largest coffee trade association in the world  has certified the Ethiopian based METAD/Kabu Coffee Quality Control Laboratory, the Ethiopian company announced yesterday. The laboratory is the first privately-owned African laboratory to be certified by the SCAA.

According to the company's press statement, sent to PANA, the Laboratory, equipped with the state-of-the-art coffee tasting technology, was certified on 17 May, 2013, after a team of SCAA experts, including Mr. Skip Finley, a Director on the SCAA Board, and Mr. Marty Curtis, a Coffee Quality Institute Instructor, inspected the laboratory same day.

“When you walk into METAD’s lab you feel like you are in the known coffee quality laboratories in the US or Korea,” Finley said in his description of the laboratory.

The laboratory, owned by its sister companies, METAD Agricultural Development PLC and Kabu Coffee PLC is located in the Gerji area of Addis Ababa.

This laboratory aims to significantly improve the quality of Ethiopian coffee and thereby increase the value of Ethiopian coffee in the global market. Certified quality coffee leads to coffee farmers earning higher prices for their beans, and fetching higher foreign currency for the country. It also increases the number of coffee quality professionals in Ethiopia.

The SCAA has also certified the Ethiopia Commodity Exchanges laboratory in Addis Ababa to become the first public institution in Africa to have its Coffee Quality Control Laboratory certified by Association, after its facility was inspected by the same team during the same week.

METAD Plc was established in 2010 to engage in farming, processing and exporting specialty coffee to the world. Kabu Coffee was established in 2009 to retail high quality roasted coffee for both local and export markets. It is currently expanding the retail/cafe business within Addis Ababa, North America and the Russian Federation markets.

Source: African Manager