We work with 14 partners worldwide, from who we source our coffee. In Uganda, we work together with Zombo Coffee Partners. On this page you can find everything you need to know about this collaboration.

OUR

PARTNERSHIP.

Wakuli works with ZCP in Nebbi, a network of 10+ locally-owned micro stations. Each station processes cherries from 85-250 farmers. Farmers and washing stations share in ZCP’s profit through a second payment and play a key role in strategic decisions, building a new kind of business in a challenging environment. In May 2024, our sourcing team met with ZCP in Nebbi to develop a strategy to improve the quality of the Gonyobendo micro station - the coffee we now offer as a DM. The results are impressive. Professionalizing the station is crucial, as large trade houses try to push ZCP out by matching their price and dropping it once ZCP is gone. If that happens, farmers' incomes take the hit - one more reason why this partnership is so important.

THE

CHANGEMAKER.

Dynamic duo Aggrey Chombe and Andy Carlton work under challenging conditions to bring the Nebbi coffee to the world stage of specialty coffee and they are doing an amazing job. Working with 10 washing stations and more than 1.000 farmers provides the expected challenges. How to visit as many of them as possible, how to process the coffee and make it ready for export? The brand new dry mill facility for the last steps in processing the green coffee is proof of their perseverance. We work closely with Aggrey and Andy and over 250 farmers of the Gonyo Bendo washing station on soil, quality, yield and income improvement. This program is an answer to the climate issues like soil erosion, drought and unpredictable rains that farmers are experiencing.

THE COFFEE.

Uganda is mainly known for high volumes of robusta coffee. However a decent percentage of total production is made up of arabica. For arabica, Mount Elgon is the best known region and denomination. With that comes its own challenges, but the highly competitive market here generally means cooperatives are closer to decent buyers than the other lesser-known arabica producing regions. This is why we’ve chosen to focus on the more disconnected regions, with a ton of obstacles but a huge potential impact. We have been working together with Zombo Coffee Partners in the far north-western corner of the country, stuck between DRC to the west and South Sudan to the north, where the coffee has the potential to be just as good or even better. We buy our washed Arabica from a single washing station called Gonyo Bendo, pictured here. The coffee has a pleasant medium body with notes of cooked fruit and nuts.

THE

COUNTRY.

Uganda as a coffee producing country is a diamond in the rough. Landlocked between Sudan and Congo in the West, Kenya in the East and Rwanda and Tanzania in the south it is in the heart of the East African coffee production region. It is one of the largest robusta-producing countries in the world, grown in the low lying central and south-western regions of the country. Arabica grows on higher elevations in the West and North-East. It is also one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in Africa. Farmers in Uganda struggle greatly with changing climate, causing unpredictable rains and droughts. For the sales of their coffee they are largely dependent on a network of local middlemen buying and reselling the coffee primarily focused on their own short-term profit, leaving farmers in the dark.

SOME NUMBERS.

250

Farmers

2019

Partnership since

24.780

Total KGs sourced since start of partnership

OUR UGANDAN COFFEE

The coffee from Uganda is available once a year as a Discover Monthly. We sell all of the coffee straight after it comes in, super fresh with a short shelf time. After that another amazing Discover Monthly will be on offer and you will see our Zombo friends in a year. Because coffee is a seasonal product in every producing country and logistics are sensitive to changes, the exact timing of the offer is hard to predict.