Greencert to inspect, Certify Tanzania’s Coffee bound for export, SCS Global Approves

The approval of the first ever local certification body is billed to reduce certification costs foreign companies impose.

July 28, 2025

3 minutes read

MONDAY July 28. 2025

Greencert is a third-party conformity assessment body, established as a neutral organisation in Tanzania for inspection, certification, and training services. PHOTOS | COURTESY.

By Adam Ihucha

The Tranquility News Correspondent, Tanzania

A global organisation has accredited Tanzania certification body – Greencert – to verify coffee exports, offering a ray of hope to the multi-million-dollar industry.

As it stands now, the Greencert, a sustainability wing of the Tanzania Horticultural Association (TAHA), becomes the first Tanzanian certification body to get the Scientific Certification System (SCS) Global Services Limited’s approval.

SCS Global Services Limited’s approval allows Greencert to conduct verification in Tanzania as a verification organisation for starbucks’ C.A.F.E Practices programme.

SCS is a global leader in third-party environmental and sustainability certification, auditing, testing services, and standards.

Greencert is a third-party conformity assessment body, established as a neutral organisation in Tanzania for inspection, certification, and training services within the framework of different standards systems in major global sectors.

Starbucks, an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves, is accredited for its signature coffee drinks, including lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, and Frappuccinos, as well as its brewed coffee options like Pike Place Roast and various blonde and dark roast choices.

C.A.F.E. Practices is a green coffee-sourcing programme developed by Starbucks in collaboration with SCS, a third-party evaluation, certification, and auditing firm, and Conservation International (CI) – an international environmental non-governmental organisation.

C.A.F.E. Practices seeks to ensure Starbucks sources sustainably grown and processed coffee by evaluating the economic, social, and environmental aspects of coffee production against a defined set of criteria as detailed in the C.A.F.E. Practices generic and smallholder scorecards.

“Your limited approval is valid for 12 months from July 14, 2025,” reads the SCS Global services notification to Greencert Limited.

As a verification organisation with limited approval, Greencert is expected to adhere to evaluation and reporting practices outlined in the C.A.F.E Practices operations manual and to fully implement the general verification guidelines for C.AF.E practices.

In accordance with the approval procedure, Greencert is authorised to conduct verification for one application (supply chain) at a time while SCS reviews the quality of an organisation’s performance.

Dr Jacqueline Mkindi, the CEO of TAHA, engages in a discussion about the Global GAP certification with Mr Eric Mwesigwa, the General Manager of Greencert.

“Thank you for your commitment to C.A.F.E Practices,” the SCS notification concludes.

The Greencert General Manager, Mr Eric Mwesigwa, says the limited approval with the 12-month lifespan, means that his body has been approved to offer verification on coffee farms or coffee export companies supplying Starbucks under the C.A.F.E. Practice standards.

“We’re going to play an important role in driving sustainable supply chains at both the production and consumption end,” says Mr Mwesigwa.

More significantly, he explains, farmers will breathe a sigh of relief, as the limited approval, the first ever local certification body, will reduce certification cost compared to charges incurred in engaging foreign certification companies.

Greencert is defined as a standalone, independent, and impartial entity established to deliver accredited certification services for product, personnel, and management systems standards.

Certification, more critically, keeps you ahead of your competition, win, and retains more business, as it ensures local coffee growers produce in compliance with international market standards,” Dr Jacqueline Mkindi, the TAHA CEO.

The TAHA Group CEO, Dr Jacqueline Mkindi, says the accreditation of Greencert certification body is a milestone to the multi-million-dollar coffee industry, as it will ease the process of certifying crops destined for international markets.

“Certification, more critically, keeps you ahead of your competition, win, and retains more business, as it ensures local coffee growers produce in compliance with international market standards,” Dr Mkindi explains.

For her, the conformity assessment improves operational efficiencies through better processes, reduces financial risk through a more stable business, cuts risk of reputational damage, and improves producer-consumer relations.

“One of the biggest impediments of Tanzanian crops accessing regional as well as international markets has been lack of compliance capacity with international quality and market standards,” Dr Mkindi notes.

In Tanzania, coffee is among robust and vibrant cash crops, owing to a greater increase in productivity, investments, and the government’s cross-country interventions as well as a burgeoning global coffee demand in export market destinations.

Ripe coffee cherries on a branch of a coffee tree. Greencert will play key role in driving sustainable supply chains of the crop at both the production and consumption ends. PHOTO | NCA.

The nation’s coffee market share has doubled to Sh620.4 billion (about $240 million) from Sh361.9 billion (about $140 million) recorded three years ago.

This growth has been driven by a 55 per cent increase in coffee production, rising from 55,000 tonnes to 85,000 tonnes per year, alongside improved prices for farmersΩ