KBQB - Koperasi Baitul Qiradh Baburrayyan

Koperasi Baitul Qiradh Baburrayyan (KBQB), an Indonesian coffee producer cooperative founded in 1995, is located in Aceh Tengah, one of the sub-districts in the Aceh province of Sumatra. Cooperative members come from this sub-district as well as from Bener Meriah. This area is home to the well-known specialty coffee, “Gayo coffee”. KBQB officially registered with the government in 2002, with 600 members, but due to the ongoing civil war, the cooperative remained relatively dormant throughout its early years. The conflict between the Indonesian government and the “Free Aceh” rebels from 1976 to 2005 claimed many lives and had a negative impact on the social and economic development of the region. KBQB has helped create stable market access for its members to revive the coffee industry after the civil war. In 2006 the members received their first organic premium, and the cooperative began to grow dramatically, to almost 5,000 members. In October 2007 KBQB became Fair Trade Certified. Through Fair Trade, KBQB has developed rapidly and recently bought the coffee processing factory they formerly rented in Takengon. This factory creates employment for community members of Takengon and has become one of the big coffee factories and a main buyer in the area. Today, KBQB is known by buyers for producing a quality cup of coffee that is 100 percent certified organic. The cooperative has maintained long-standing relationships with various buyers in the international market, showcasing the farmers’ reliability and valued standards of quality production.