Founder
Started the company in Mtwara in 2010 and grew it from a single-crop cashew desk into a six-product export house reaching from the southern coast to the western woodlands and the highland coffee and avocado belts. Bio to be added.
About Afri Exports
The company
From a Mtwara Cashew Desk to a Six-Product Export House
Afri Exports opened in 2010 trading a single crop from Tanzania's cashew belt. Sesame from the central plains came next, then green cardamom from the Eastern Arc highlands and raw honey from the western miombo woodland. Green coffee and Hass avocados followed once we had people on the ground in the Southern Highlands, where both are grown. Each was added only after we could apply the same origin discipline we had proven on cashew. The head office remains in Mtwara; the sourcing network now reaches across Tanzania.
Where our products come from
Six landscapes, each worked at the farm gate
We do not buy off trading floors. Each product has its own intake network — contracted grower groups, washing stations, packhouses, beekeeper associations and collection points whose records feed our lot numbering. That is what lets us say, for any container, exactly which district the crop came off and when.
- Southern Tanzania — cashew intake across the growing districts
- Central Tanzania — the sesame belt's field-crop lots
- Kilimanjaro and Arusha — washed arabica from the northern slopes
- Mbeya, Songwe and Ruvuma — Southern Highlands arabica and the bulk of the coffee crop
- Kagera, on Lake Victoria — natural-process robusta
- Njombe, Iringa and Mbeya — Hass avocado orchards and their packhouses
- Eastern Arc highlands — green cardamom from contracted growers
- Tabora and the western miombo belt — raw forest honey from beekeeper groups
How lots are cleared
One protocol every commodity must pass
Quality here is a checklist, not a promise. Before any lot is booked to a vessel it passes a sampling plan, a product-specific laboratory panel and a tolerance sheet matched to the buyer's market. The same sequence applies whether the lot is kernels, seed, pods, green coffee, fruit or drums of honey — only the test parameters change, and for avocados the first gate falls before harvest rather than after it.
- TBS-certified processing operation in Mtwara for cashew and sesame
- Product-specific lab panel on a representative sample of every lot
- Green coffee screened, moisture-checked and cupped before a lot is confirmed
- Avocados dry-matter tested per orchard block before picking is authorised
- Honey checked for moisture, HMF and diastase before any drum is sealed
- Lot-numbered documents linking test results to intake records
- TBS-Certified Facility
- Lab-Tested Lots
- Origin-Traceable
Who runs it
One Team Across Six Programmes
Sourcing, quality and logistics sit with the same five people across every product — decisions are made by staff who know the lots, not by a call centre.
Joachim Mbwana
Sourcing Lead
Owns the buying side across cashew, sesame, coffee and cardamom, plus the beekeeper groups, orchards and packhouses behind our honey and avocado lots.
Asha Ngonyani
Quality Manager
Wrote the single quality protocol that every commodity passes before it ships — sampling plans, lab-test panels per product, and the tolerance sheets our contracts are checked against.
Daniel Mahenge
Logistics Coordinator
Routes each product family through the right corridor — Mtwara for the southern cashew season, Dar es Salaam for the dry goods coming down from the interior, reefer services for avocados — and keeps the document packs ahead of the vessels.
Neema Kessy
Nutrition & Editorial Lead
Turns lab data and field practice into the buyer guides on our journal, and keeps nutrition and food-safety claims across every Afri Exports site accurate and referenced.
Who we ship to
Buyers on four continents, three export corridors
Cashew loads at Mtwara in season. Sesame, coffee, cardamom and honey come down from the interior and load at Dar es Salaam. Avocados follow the reefer services, which for East African fruit still means Mombasa more often than not. Wherever the destination, the document pack is prepared against that market's import rules.
- IndiaKernels, RCN and a fast-growing avocado trade
- United Arab EmiratesMulti-commodity re-export hub
- VietnamRaw cashew nut programmes
- Egypt & LebanonSesame for tahini and kernel imports
- European UnionAvocados, green coffee and food-ingredient buyers
- United States & CanadaSpecialty coffee, honey and cardamom lots
- East AsiaSortex sesame to exacting intake specs
- Anywhere by enquiryFOB to the port you name
Read before you buy
Guides we wish every new buyer had read
The journal covers the questions that fill our inbox — supplier vetting, Incoterms, harvest timing and the paperwork behind an East African shipment.
Talk to the desk
Six products, one conversation
Send the products, specifications and destination ports you are working with — the Mtwara desk answers with availability and indicative numbers within one business day.