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Bahraini-led coffee startup, Beanboat, has launched Bahrain’s first farm-to-doorstep sustainable coffee subscription service, leveraging their existing relationships with coffee farmers and a new partnership with Flat6Labs.
The coffee company started in 2018 and their latest offering is the ‘bean-child’ of two teams – one based in Bahrain and the other based in Colombia. The Bahraini unit is comprised of Saleh Sharif, 30, Hamad AlJawder, 27, Zahid Balooshi, 32, and Jenan Mohammedi, 27, while the Colombian crew includes John Ciro, 29 and Hugo Valencia, 35.
GulfWeekly reported in 2018 on Beanboat’s mission to provide a platform for sustainable fair trade coffee culture in the region. With a subscription model, not only will coffee lovers have a regular caffeine supply, coffee farmers in Colombia are better able to anticipate supply and demand for beans, and the company’s platform will allow even more high-grade coffee to flow into the region.
Zahid said: “Our subscriptions model offers our consumers a continuous supply of freshly roasted specialty coffee and offers our partnering farmers direct access to the GCC market. It streamlines the process of ordering coffee for personal use, as we offer multiple packages based on realistic consumption. It’s a personalised service so we try to offer different roasts and grind levels to each of our customers.”
Saleh added: “Beanboat maintains personal and direct relationships with the farms we partner with. The coffee we have is direct-trade. We buy it from family farmers at a fair price that helps them live a sustainable lifestyle and be rightful owners of their products. The business idea behind Beanboat is to educate consumers in knowing and demanding where the products are sourced and who is profiting and how much.”
The company has been successful in the green beans segment, roasting high-grade green coffee beans and providing top-grade coffee to connoisseurs across the region, especially Saudi Arabia.
With the new model, the young team hopes to attract corporate clients and give Colombian farmers a chance to showcase their beans.
Hamad said: “Our current subscriptions are directly tied to Pedro Maya, as we use his beans for the service. However, as coffee is a seasonal produce, we want to give other coffee farmers a chance to be part of this service, so we will be rotating the beans we offer for subscriptions periodically.
Saleh added: Pedro Maya is one of our newest addition to our farm-family whom we are directly in touch with. His farm produces some of the finest rainforest alliance-certified coffee which is located in the Fredonia region of Colombia at an altitude of 1900 metres. We have helped Pedro bridge a connection with buyers in Eastern Europe and parts of GCC. Pedro Maya, 68, comes from a long line of coffee farmers following his father’s footsteps. He also produces a special variety of coffee called ‘honey processed’ which is a big hit with our customers.”
The team was recently picked by Flat6Labs as part of the accelerator’s fourth cycle, in the hopes of further expanding and attracting investment from across the region.
Hamad noted: “Working with Flat6Labs has enabled us to shape our vision for the future and convert it into a solid action plan. They continuously provide us with guidance and help in many things that we as a startup need, be it sessions about ethical business practices, managing our finances, improving our network and connecting us to the right parties. Flat6Labs have been instrumental to our growth in the last few months, and we are very satisfied and thankful to have been part of their fourth cycle.”
Going forward, the team plans to continue building a community around coffee beans with regular cupping sessions and other gatherings.
Hamad concluded: “The coffee scene has undergone rapid growth since we began two years ago, both in Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf countries. There are specialty coffee shops and roastries opening in Bahrain and an increasing number of people being converted to specialty coffee drinkers. The community of coffee drinkers is growing and the hunt for specialty beans from all parts of the coffee producing countries is making us all very excited. This has pushed us to thinking about expanding beyond Colombia, and working with farmers in other countries, but we won’t spill the beans just yet!”
