Milling

How the milling journey works

Every consignment of coffee follows a controlled path from the moment a delivery is booked to the moment graded coffee enters the warehouse. The flow below shows the full reception-to-milling cycle.

Reception & weighbridge operations

Contracted farmers and cooperatives book a delivery slot through their regional extension officer or the branch customer-care line, and receive a booking slip used to obtain a county movement permit. On arrival, coffee is weighed on a calibrated weighbridge: the loaded vehicle is weighed before off-loading and again after, and the difference gives the exact net weight. Every delivery is logged into the ERP system production module for planning and inventory control.

• Outturn Number — coffee parchment is tagged with a unique number derived from the delivery week, mill identifier and delivery sequence — the single traceability key from milling to export.
• SMS notification — an automated message confirms the society/estate name, coffee type, outturn number, number of bags, net weight, moisture content and the receiving warehouse.
• Moisture test — measured while the farmer witnesses; below 11% the lot is scheduled for milling, above 11% it is scheduled for drying first.

The milling process stages

Certified batches (Fairtrade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ and C.A.F.E Practices) are milled separately with detailed records maintained. Dry parchment is loaded onto the hopper and moves through the following stages:

• Pre-cleaning — removal of dirt, leaves and sisal twines.
• Destoner & magnet — extraction of stones, solids and magnetic metallic impurities.
• Hulling — removal of the parchment layer; polishing removes the silver skin.
• Grading — classification by bean size into 8 grades (AA, AB, C, TT, PB, E, HE, Triage), followed by gravity separation by density.
• Colour sorting — camera colour sorters remove primary and secondary defects (on grower request).
• Bagging — clean export jute bags of 60 kg; under-filled bags packaged as pockets (PKTS).
• Quality evaluation — final post-milling assessment of moisture, screen size, physical defects and cup quality.

Documentation & traceability on every bag

Each graded bag is tagged with the FCS/bulk name, outturn number, grade classification, certification status, season, kilograms in the bag, processing date and quality parameters — guaranteeing full farm-to-export traceability.