Farmer Ato Dukale was born near Bensa, in the Sidama region, where his parents had a coffee farm. At the age of 16, he started working in small businesses in the area, selling clothes or sugar cane. However, his interest soon turned to coffee as he traveled around his home region collecting coffee beans from local farmers.
In the late eighties, he built the first washing machine, which he named Awraja and family, which was his nickname when he was a famous volleyball player and traveled the country with his team in the colors of his district, Bensa Awraja! Since then, his business has flourished and Ato Dukale now has 16 collection centers in the Sidama, Gedeo, West Guji regions where coffee is collected from various small farmers in the surrounding villages and then processed at washing stations. The company has now been taken over by his sons, who continue to work with their father to produce high quality coffee.