Mombasa Tea Auction ran as a manual auction for the last 20 years. In 2016, EATTA began the journey of automating the Mombasa Tea Auction with the help of Trademark East Africa(TMEA) through the Danish government at USD 2.17million. The automation was in a view of enhancing efficiency with which teas are sold through the auction. Developed over 3 years, the first sale went live on 27^th May 2020.

The system incorporates four modules which include:

1. Membership module – This covers first-time application, renewal of membership, and management of membership issues.
2. Catalogue module – The module covers Tea dispatch by producers. Once the producer has dispatched the teas, the broker consolidates the teas from the different producers and prepares a closing catalogue. The warehouse has also the mandate of updating received teas in the iTTS once they physically arrive at the warehouse. On the week before the auction, the broker publishes a sale catalogue that has the valuations and their comments on the teas. This is the final catalogue that is used for auction. The buyer has also a feature to preset prices and input their comments.
3. Auction module - This is a transition in the actual bidding process from the manual outcry system to a fully automated system. It is a trade engine with different logic to accept the highest bid value offered by Buyers and declare the sale.
4. Business module - Supports generation of sale Invoices by the brokers and payment references by the buyers. The module also integrates with Bank systems to get confirmation on the payment receipt. When payment is updated on iTTS, the broker Generates Tea Release Documents and Delivery orders. Once the buyer has received the delivery order, they generate Loading Instruction which is sent to the warehouse to enable the release of teas. The warehouse releases teas based on the loading instruction and issues a Release Certificate.

iTTS Process Flow

Benefits of the integrated tea trading system

1. Central Data Repository System.
   Data mining from the online auctions which will provide EATTA and its members, as well as
   other tea stakeholders in the region and globally with useful data to analyze market trends,
   analyze market dynamics and respond to demand promptly.
2. Increased Transparency and visibility
   Farmers will be provided with accurate information on the prices their teas fetch at the
   auction. Buyers on the other hand will be able to compare prices and various teas on sale.
3. Ease and convenience of selling teas.
   The Integrated Tea Trading System can be accessed from remote locations and therefore
   authorized buyers can participate in an auction at their comfort. This is a departure from the traditional auction that would require a physical presence at the auction floor in Mombasa.
4. Increased buyer participation
   There is an opportunity for more Buyers participation. Participation of the buyers is not
   restricted by the physical size of the auction floor.
5. Introduction of multi-auction system
   With the upcoming initiatives on running parallel auction systems, more volumes will be
   traded on within the shortest time possible.