- Kirinyaga overtakes Kiambu as Kenya’s leading coffee earner, generating Ksh7.48 billion in the 2025/26 season.
- Kericho leads coffee sales by volume, delivering 6,624 MT to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange.
- Coffee production across five leading counties rises by 30 per cent, while Kiambu records a sustained decline.
Kiambu no longer leads Kenya’s coffee counties, and Kirinyaga has taken its place. Kericho has meanwhile become the biggest supplier at the auction floor.
Kirinyaga earned the most in the 2025/26 season, with Ksh 7.48 billion. It also fetched the best auction price among the leading counties, at USD 361 per 50 kg bag. Direct sales did better still. About 27 percent of its coffee left through that channel at USD 421 a bag, which is USD 60 above what the county earned on average at auction.
Altogether, Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Kericho, Nyeri and Murang’a sold 30,752 metric tonnes (MT) of clean coffee worth Ksh 27.7 billion.
Kericho led on volume. It delivered 6,624 MT to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, more than Murang’a at 5,837 MT, Kirinyaga at 5,604 MT, Kiambu at 5,468 MT and Nyeri at 5,027 MT. Cooperatives grow 88 percent of the county’s coffee, and they sell mostly through the auction. Only 2 percent of Kericho’s coffee went through direct sales, while Kirinyaga sold more than a quarter that way. Production also ran well ahead of expectations, with sales reaching 144 percent of the official forecast of 4,600 MT.
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Price was not what carried Kericho, though. Its average of USD 342 a bag left it in the middle of the pack. Even so, 72 percent of its coffee was premium grade, the highest share among the five counties.
A look at the longer run shows how much the map has shifted. Using Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) yearbook figures for the 2020/21 crop, output from the five counties has grown 30 percent, from 23,591 MT to 30,752 MT.
Kericho has grown fastest. Its sales rose 128 percent, from 2,965 MT to 6,749 MT. Murang’a followed with an 88 percent increase to 5,837 MT, then Nyeri with 36 percent to 5,027 MT and Kirinyaga with 27 percent to 7,672 MT. Kirinyaga remains the largest seller overall, having taken over from Kiambu as top producer in 2024/25 with 8,999 MT.
Kiambu stands apart as the only county moving the wrong way. Its crop hit a high of 10,637 MT in 2021/22 and then fell every year, reaching 8,224 MT in 2024/25. Quality has held up in places, as its AA grade still sold at USD 391. Yet only 54 percent of its auction coffee was premium grade.
By Benedict Aoya
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