Mastering Coffee Expertise

At Vuna Coffee School, we’ve designed a comprehensive training curriculum to equip you with the essential knowledge and skills needed to excel in the global coffee market.

Our courses cover the critical pillars of coffee expertise, ensuring that you gain practical, actionable insights to thrive in every aspect of the coffee business. Whether you’re focusing on procurement, marketing, pricing, or financial management, our curriculum is tailored to build your capacity and position you for success in an increasingly competitive industry.

Course Curriculum

1.Sustainable Procurement

Many producer organizations act as intermediaries, simply buying from growers and selling to buyers. However, effective procurement is crucial for securing the necessary volume and quality, while fostering strong, positive relationships with growers.

This pillar focuses on key aspects of procurement: setting daily purchasing prices, defining delivery and payment terms, developing collection and procurement strategies, and setting clear objectives for each new harvest cycle.

In this course, you will learn:
1. Coffee picking, harvesting and processing
2. Warehousing & storage
3. Quality control protocols & sensory analysis
4. Dry milling & transportation
5. Commercial roasting & grinding
6. Packaging & R&D application
In this course, you will learn:
1. How to execute a harvest evaluation & projection.
2. How to design and implement sound purchasing, sales and marketing strategies.
3. How to use tools to mitigate price risk.
4. How to successfully roll out green coffee trading strategies through principles of good governance.

Two women standing at a table with water bottles, cups, and papers, engaged in a discussion or signing a document.

2. Sales & Marketing

In the coffee industry, it’s often said that buying is easy, but selling is the real challenge.

In today’s crowded market, the ability to build, maintain, and expand client relationships—both online and offline—is crucial for every producer organization. The ultimate goal is to expand your market access - revolve from being just a green bean supplier to becoming a recognized green coffee brand.

This pillar focuses on: mastering the digital customer journey, identifying your organization’s unique selling proposition (USP), crafting a compelling product offering, developing sales strategies for major trade shows, and executing impactful digital marketing campaigns.

In this course, you will learn:
How to design an access to market strategy that is tailored to the specific needs of key specialty markets.
Specifically, you will learn how to execute an access to market strategy for:
- North America
- Northern, Western and Southern Europe
- China
- Japan
- The Middle East
In this course, you will learn:
1. How to design a team and expertise required to deploy digital market access & client engagement strategy.
2. How to build the brand core that defines brand value, story, and competitor analysis of a producer organization.
3. How to identify the market segment of the organization and build a corresponding product solution for different customer persona.
4. How to define and build digital channels to engage with clients to expand the reach and engagement of the brand
In this course, you will learn:
Understand the business case for gender equity in coffee.
Conduct gender assessments and develop actionable gender policies.
Promote women’s leadership within producer organizations.
Engage buyers through gender-inclusive marketing strategies.
Apply gender inclusion methodologies to support joint decision-making.

Group of people sitting on the floor in front of a large chart on the wall, participating in a discussion or training session in a classroom.

3.Price Fixing

The coffee market is notoriously volatile and unpredictable.

While price fluctuations can't be controlled, effective price fixing strategies can help mitigate and manage the associated risks. Through the smart use of contracts and options, producer organizations can navigate each harvest cycle with a clear objective: to achieve the best possible sale price, one contract at a time.

This pillar focuses on understanding contract types and their optimal use, analyzing market fundamentals and technical indicators, utilizing market orders effectively, and managing open positions to protect your bottom line.

In this course, you will learn:
1. Identify risks in the coffee supply chain
2. Use basic price risk management tools
3. Read and interpret a purchase contract
4. Implement basic sales and price fixing strategies
5. Understand the basics of a hedging strategy
In this course, you will learn:
1. What price risk means in the coffee industry
2. How price risk can impact an organization’s revenue stream
3. Physical tools to mitigate price risk
4. What a physical strategy is & how to use it to manage price risk
5. Introduction to the use of hedging tools (futures, options)
In this course, you will learn:
1. How to design, implement and evaluate a price risk management strategy for your organization
2. How to conduct in depth Technical Analysis to identify price trends and price movements
3. In depth understanding of derivatives tools, specifically futures and options
4. Finally, you will be taught options strategies to increase margins and lower options costs

Handwritten ledger or record book with columns for code, date, first name, last name, quantity, price per unit, total, and amount in currency, filled with names, dates, and numerical data.

4. Finance & Compliance

In harvest time, cash is king.

No matter the mission or services provided to growers, a producer organizations that lacks trade finance will never scale the business.

Meeting banks and lenders’ expectations, passing due diligence audits and preparing impeccable loan applications are just a few examples of what a successful financing strategy looks like.

Focus of the pillar: cash flow management, loan applications, loan diversification, sustainability standards and due diligence.

Real Success Stories:

Hear from Our Students

"My first open price contract!"

“I tried using an open price contract after taking your Price Risk Management course, and it worked! It was my first time and I was able to fix very well”
Kambale Kisumba Kamungele, Export Director
Tsongo Kasereka (DRC)
"One of the most useful coffee courses I have taken"

“The Green Coffee Trading Fundamentals has been one of the most useful coffee courses I have taken. The content is great, the methodology is so good”
Carlito Alves, Manager
Cooperativa Socio Agricola Logistica de Timor for Organic Coffee and Rice (Timor Leste)
"Great insights for our export targeting markets"

"Quality, quantity, market reseach planning and budgeting and time management are very vita but it's the combination of all strenghts that make a good strategy. In this course (Seller's Guide for Specialty Coffee Market), I reach a new level of understanding, thank you!
Muhindo Samuel, Managing Director
Kiboota-Kateebwa Coffee Farmers Association (Uganda)

Transparent & Flexible Pricing

Our pricing is structured based on the course difficulty level. Please refer to the chart below for a detailed overview.

For individual students, simply enroll and start your course right away - no need to wait for a cohort.

We also offer group discounts for cohorts of 15 or more participants. Contact us directly to discuss your group’s needs.

12-16 hours

€375

Easy

Seed to Cup Fundamental

Price Risk Management: Basic

Gender Equit & Inclusion

Accesss to Finance (coming soon)

20-28 hrs

€500

Medium

Green Coffee Trading Fundamental

Digital Market Access & Client Engagement

Seller’s Guide for Specialty Coffee Markets (U.S. , Europe, China, Japan)

Price Risk Management: Intermediate

32-40 hrs

€750

Difficult

Price Risk Management: Advanced

Digital Market Access & Client Engagement: Implementation Guide (coming soon)

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Mobile phone displaying an online course curriculum with various video lessons and exercises listed under different sessions, including options to start each lesson.