In search of ethical coffee: Day 1

On 12 May 2009 Tony and I hit the road to Uganda on what became known as the UGANDA COFFEE TRAIL.


Tony at The source of River Nile uganda

Tony had never been to Africa, his parents are from Ravello on the Amalfi cost in Italy but he grew up in London



Amalfi Coast Italy


Nigel and I love that part of Italy and have had a few holidays there but had never met anyone from there


7.5 hours later on a BA filgt and were in Uganda . the best part of this is the landing over lake victoria one the largest in land lakes.

We were met by Ethnic Supplies Staff and having sorted out the itinerary we headed East to a town called Mbale. On the we stopped off at the source of the River Nile


Source of the river Nile Uganda


This is the home of Bugisu Arabica coffee; where we visited the Bugisu Cooperative Union.





This is what is called a Secondary cooperative because it buys coffee from primary societies as well as farmers, it has processing, grading and roasting facilities.

The facilities have great capacity but have fallen on bad times, meaning that the equipment is old, the facility is not as clean as it should be, part of the facility has been closed, reducing capacity. Poor business and investment decisions were made leading to near bankruptcy until the government bailed them out.

The director was understandably nervous about our intentions. He would however welcome some form of partnership working. He hopes that the Union can return to its former glory and be in a position to export a fully processed product from here. I hope so too for his sake!

We also visited the Mbale Importers and exporters- Under the leadership of Stephen M Wekomba they describe themselves as coffee exporters and processors. There was not much to learn from this group and on the day we arrived we observed women sorting coffee beans by hand



women sorting coffee beans




Hassan (our guide) Stephen and Tony


children at Mmbale exporters


After this stop we headed further east to a village called Sipi and spent the night at Sipi River Lodge
a home from home.

This place is located on the foot hills of Mt elgon and the weather is changeable from hour to hour. When we arrived it was sunny half an hour alter, it rained so heavily we couldn't believe it!





sipi river falls, view from my bedroom window


cottage at Sipi River Lodge

In search of Ethical Coffee- Uganda

The search for ethical coffee begun in earnest on 31 March 2009, at the Headquarters of OTTIMO Cafe in Tottenham North London.

There were two sides in the "pot" so to say. The charity Let Them Help Themselves out of Poverty and OTTIMO

The charity works on various community projects in Uganda and relies heavily on the generosity of friends and volunteers, however this is not sustainable especially in the current economic environment.

On the other hand OTTIMO wanted to improve its Corporate Social Responsibility and had been frustrated with the existing models of helping African farmers.

It was therefore agreed that Charity would sell its expertise of working with communities in Uganda in particular to OTTIMO and that OTTIMO would share some of their profits with the charity to enable it to continue its work in Uganda, with specific emphasis on communities in the coffee growing regions

The next step was to travel to Uganda. It was agreed early on that this was a necessary step in the discussions. It would help us understand how the coffee industry in Uganda operates, enable us to meet the growers and establish a working relationship with them, as well as get a clear understanding on doing business in Uganda.

So it was that on 12 May we hit the road to Uganda in search of ethical coffee. In next blog I will write about the coffee trail, and post some photos from the trip

Being in the wrong place at the right time or is it? part 3

I am glad I followed through my promise to send Adam and Tony Ugandan. Adam promptly got in touch and started asking a lot of questions about how I had come by this tea and how easy was it to get hold of other stuff from Uganda.

All this was by email being a curious so and so, I picked up the phone and asked why Adam wanted to know all this sort of information. It was at this point that he opened up to me. Like me he had Tony had turned up in Leicester and later in London with a view to meeting some Ugandan Asians. They wanted to start trading ethically and were already in talks with a company owned by a Uganda Asian whom they believed would help them “change” their ways however for some unknown reasons the person they had been in talks with stopped retuning their calls or emails and appeared to have dropped off the face of the earth.

They therefore wondered if I could help them through my contacts in Uganda and other African countries. This was late November 2008. I got as much information for them as I possibly could and I was suddenly hit by a feeling of “I am being used” I told them I would not provide further information from that point unless they were willing to pay for it as it was costing me money and time to find it.

They told me they didn’t have the sort of money I was asking and therefore were walking away. Something in me told me to look a little closer at this, so I asked them more questions about their intentions and with this information we were able to bring people that we each know from different walks of life and we had 3 hour meeting talking through the pros and cons of the idea.. the search for Ethical coffee had begun..