Determinants of Marketability of Kaffa Coffee

Abstract

Following Oil, Coffee becomes the leading traded commodity in the world and the top traded agricultural product of the world. Ethiopia becomes Africa’s top Arabica coffee producer and exporter. Even though Kaffa is the origin or birth place of coffee and known for coffee producing, the area is not cultivating the benefit or advantage from coffee marketing. Additionally, Kaffa coffee is priced at lower price in Ethiopian commodity exchange compared to coffee coming from other parts of Ethiopia. Against this backdrop, this study tried to identify the determinants of the marketability of Kaffa coffee. The study was employed through descriptive and explanatory design in which the data from target respondents were collected using questionnaires and interviews. In order to differentiate the determinants of marketability of Kaffa coffee, through Likert scale-based questionnaires 103 target respondents’ views were considered and the interviews were conducted with 10 target respondents. Regression analysis with the help of SPSS version 21 was used as means for questionnaire-based data analysis. In-depth interview-based data were analyzed through content analysis. The results show that there are many determinants of marketability of Kaffa coffee. Among these the transportation, illegal trade, quality of coffee, promotion and destination branding holds the lion share. This study considered small sample size as well as focused only on Kaffa coffee. Thus, interested researchers could consider large sample size and determinants of marketability of other Ethiopian coffee.

Keywords: Kaffa, Ethiopia, Coffee, Marketability