With a territory spanning two provinces, three local governments and seven districts, the 1,750 farmers who make up the Unen Choit Cooperative Society have been growing the coffee, you may be enjoying right now, for over 15 years.

Of the 1,750 farmers, a whopping 1,050 are youth and 241 are women. The Cooperative employs 17 full time staff (6 female and 11 male, of whom 9 are youth), 8 part-time, and 12 seasonal staff during the peak coffee season.

The Cooperative’s business model is simple: farmers grow, harvest, process, and sell coffee to the Cooperative following Fairtrade and NASAA organic standards. The Cooperative then ships the parchment coffee into Lae city, processes it into green beans and sells to Lae based exporters for exporting to overseas markets.

Typically, coffee grows at an altitude of 800 – 2000 meters above sea level, and these are naturally some of the hardest to reach communities living in remote and rugged conditions and disconnected from basic government services. Sitting on the fringes of Morobe and Madang Provinces, neither government takes any real responsibility for the well-being of these border communities.

Managing this key business infrastructure network is anything but simple. A satellite office in the heart of Lae city manages sales and administration, a compound on the outskirts of the city houses staff, and a large warehouse facility provides access to wharfing and distribution facilities in tiny Wasu on PNG’s northern seaboard. Accessible only by air or sea, the Wasu Depot is a small but vibrant economic hub servicing both provinces.

Despite – or perhaps because of – these challenges, these marginalised rural people embrace the cooperative model and principles of working together, with an unwavering loyalty to their vision of a good life. It is a tough supply chain with coffee bags transported on the backs of any who will carry them to the nearest unsealed road access from where they are transported by the Cooperative’s trucks or over rough seas to the Wasu depot, and from there to Lae.

World renowned voluntary market certifications of Fairtrade and NASSA Organic greatly enhance the Cooperative’s access to the international market where consumers the world over enjoy these exotic and well-balanced coffee flavours.

With such an industry to manage, good financial processes are essential. Through Fairtrade, the Cooperative was linked to BLP approved service provider, Beach Accounting. They have now migrated their manual excel-based record keeping to an online MYOB accounting system. With improved accounting and financial management, they can better track their income and expenses and are able to meet their internal and external reporting requirements including that of FTO standards.

“We are thankful to Fairtrade ANZ for linking us to Business Link Pacific and through this partnership, the process was made very easy,” says Terry Molock, founder and Unen Choit General Manager. “Our challenge now is that, over time, we will learn to master the MYOB accounting system and continue to improve our overall governance and transparency of our operation to our 1,750 members who are ultimately the owners of this Cooperative and to whom both the Board and Management are accountable for improved community well-being.”

Fifteen years ago, a cluster of farmers in the village of Wawet walked just a few bags of coffee 5 hours to Wasu. Now the Cooperative has an annual sales volume of 6,000 coffee bags, each weighing 60 kg and is among the leading coffee cooperatives in PNG. Think about that over your next delicious cup of PNG coffee.

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