Utilising tech to improve livelihoods in coffee

Aim

The Bean You app will allow individuals to connect with others (including coffee farmers), and get rewarded.

Since early 2023, we have been brewing a first-of-its-kind café experience that blends emotional connection, ethical sourcing, and digital interaction. It’s not just about coffee. It’s about how you feel drinking it, where it came from, and what it means to you.

We have been working with smallholder farmers in Kenya to trial the concept in three main stages, namely developing the core brand values, and the café experience, and finally, consolidating the advanced tech into a single customer app, through which the cafes will be operated.

Visit our website Bean You to learn more and watch the video below with Jennifer, who is one of our farmers.

Our approach

Our approach involves creating a digital twin (ie., a copy) of the farm that allows you and other coffee lovers to connect directly to 'your' coffee crop, 'your' farmer, their story ... it's not any coffee beans, it's their coffee (and yours!!).

So it's not just coffee, but MY coffee from MY tree enabled by someone who I can reach out and thank, tip, and get involved with their lives.

We connect you with your farm, your community, digitally through our Bean You app which is already approved on the Apple and Android market places and IRL (In-Real-Life) through our cafes.

The Bean You app

The Bean You app which will be used in our cafes, goes beyond your basic rewards program. It’s a bonus digital layer to customer experience - using AI to reflect your preferences, offer perks, lower circle of friends group pricing, and connect you with like-minded people. And, it also links you to the source of your coffee.

The Bean You app allows likeminded individuals and communities to come together, IRL (In Real Life) and Digitally. It also directly connects you to your coffee farmer(s).

The tech is being developed by global leaders in the field, including #CCEG (which is one of the leading non-profit think tanks on the transacting of social value), and #ArborVerificationTech.

The cafes 

The cafés, which will be run as franchises by local persons just like you, are designed to bring people together. It's a space for group hangouts and spontaneous conversations. The design is also intentionally open-ended: a kind of living room for the neighbourhood, shaped over time by the people who gather in it. Each location becomes uniquely its own - belonging to its own place, its own people, and the stories they share over coffee.

In a nutshell, we allow Bean You stakeholders (customers, farmers, staff, etc) to connect both in the physical space, and in the online space through the App.

So, what will your funds actually be used for?

The fund raise is UK venture capital advanced assured through the SIES/EIS.

Your funding will be used for two main purposes:

(1) To further scale technology at the farms, to increase connectivity at the farm level, and at scale. This will not only enable higher productivity (e.g., from being able to better access weather data), but also wider benefits such as increased livelihoods for farmers and their families

(2) To test and scale the Bean You app. The app is already on Apple and Android marketplaces for download. However, it consists only of an 'empty shell structure'. Your funding will enable the addition of digital assets linked to the farms, as well as tools and services that will enable connectivity - e.g., between the farmers and customers, or between friends to meet up for a coffee.

This project successfully funded on 27th November 2025