Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society, the umbrella organization that includes Rukira Factory, is one of Kenya’s larger societies, with 19 different factories and more than 14,000 farmer members across the southern Nyeri region. The Rukira Factory has 800 members, 600 of whom are actively harvesting and delivering to the processing center.

The Gatugi Factory has 500 members actively harvesting and delivering to the processing center. 
Gatugi ferments for 27-35 hours depending on ambient conditions.

After fermentation, the parchment is rinsed and the water replenished, and the clean parchment soaks for an additional 12 hours, after which it is sorted by density and brought to the tables to dry, typically for two weeks.

After drying is complete the coffee is stored on site and eventually delivered to the Othaya dry mill for grading and a final density sort.

The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch.

The factory’s total cherry intake tends to hover around 323,000 kgs, meaning the average member of Gatugi is farming enough coffee fruit for roughly two 60kg bags of exportable green.