OUR VISION

Migoti Coffee Company was conceived in 2015 by two engineers during long car trips across Burundi.  Their goal is to connect local Burundian coffee farmers, through quality coffee processing and transparent supply chains, with buyers and roasters from around the world. Dan and Pontien, both born in Burundi, desire to see coffee-producing communities economically transformed, with coffee as a catalyst for the growth.

Trained as engineers, Dan and Pontien have a clear understanding of how to build, operate and continually improve systems. Dan’s many years of experience in business and humanitarian development work, and Pontien’s childhood roots in a coffee-producing community make them a powerful team to partner with the local community for long-term growth and transformation. Prior to 2015, the multi-generational coffee farmers in Pontien’s home community had all but abandoned coffee as a source of income due to the 12-year civil war, during which their Arabica coffee trees were neglected and destroyed. Another challenge was the great distance between their small farms and washing stations, which led many farmers to process lower quality coffee on their farms.

In 2016, Migoti Coffee started operating with a modern coffee washing station in the center of Pontien’s home community, and now the community has a new-found hope for the future and farmers are investing in their coffee farms. Quality coffee production is just one of the entrepreneurial projects that Pontien has planned in his community. He and Dan are actively developing a small hydropower plant to provide low-cost renewable energy to the local community and to the coffee washing station. They are investigating new crops for the coffee farmers to plant on their farms – such as essential oil crops which will be processed into essential oils at the Migoti Washing Station.