Background

The Association Café Africa was formed in Switzerland in 2006. It was founded by Mr John Schluter, who has worked in Africa’s coffee enterprises (starting in Uganda) from 1966 until 2004. He worked in Uganda and in several other East and Central African countries, working in processing and export, before moving to Europe in 1981. There he was involved in import and marketing. In 2004 he handed the responsibility for his family coffee trading business to his nephew, Philip Schluter, the 6th generation in that business.

In February 2006, he delivered a presentation at the EAFCA conference in Arusha, Tanzania on the present and future challenges of marketing Africa’s coffee. In putting the statistics together, it became clear that this was the time to address the problem of reducing volumes of coffee being produced and the resulting increase in poverty. This became the foundation of the vision to campaign for a restoration of Africa’s coffee industry to 1975 levels when Africa was a major player in the international coffee market.