Rwanda avails coffee products on Singapore’s leading online platform, largest supermarket chain

RWANDA – Rwanda has expanded its coffee market beyond the traditional exports by availing the products in Singapore’s leading online retail store, RedMart and the country’s largest supermarket chain National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) FairPrice.

According to reports by New Times Rwanda, NTUC FairPrice has 100 supermarkets across Singapore and the sale of the products on RedMart platform will avail to not only Singaporeans but customers across the globe.

The development was announced by Jean de Dieu Uwihanganye, Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Singapore stating, “Rwanda’s products are now on the most popular e-commerce platforms in Singapore and the largest supermarket chain.

“Coffee and Kawah are now on RedMart and Shopee SG. Kawah is also at FairPrice SG mall at Marina Parade.”

Data from the National Agricultural Export Development Board, (NAEB), indicates that in 2020, Rwanda generated US$2,794,744 from coffee exports to Singapore, fetching an average price of US$3.4 per kilogramme.

The total volume of coffee exports to the country stood at 825,143 Kilograms in the same period.

The recent move follows a recent partnership between Rwanda and Singapore Business Federation (SBF), a deal that among others seeks to facilitate trade in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as globally.

Under the partnership, various businesses are linked online to allow suppliers to connect with buyers as part of the efforts to establish the manufacturer-reseller partnership.

As of January, this year, more than 90 Rwandan firms had been introduced to the portal to allow them directly market their products and services to other investors across sectors.

Rwanda and Singapore are currently cooperating in different aspects, most notably in aviation, investment, and public service management.

Total investments by the Asian state in Rwanda amounted to US$145 million in 2018.

Other key drivers of Rwanda’s coffee exports is the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) on China’s e-commerce platform.

Rwanda and the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2018 signed an agreement that opened doors for small businesses in Africa to take part in the cross-border electronic trade by availing their products to the Chinese market through Tmall, a subsidiary online platform of Alibaba.

As a result, several brands of Rwandan single-origin coffee are already available for sale on this platform.

In May about 1.5 tonnes of roasted Rwandan coffee beans from Gorilla Coffee brand were sold within a minute during an online live streaming event which had about 20 million fans.

This was the second time for such an event to be organised by the Rwandan embassy in China. Earlier this last year, in a similar event held in Hangzhou City, up to 2,000 packets of Rwandan coffee was sold in about 10 minutes.

Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Business Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food and agro industry. SUBSCRIBE HERE