Zombo Coffee Partners
Zombo Coffee est une entreprise de café de spécialité qui travaille avec de petits agriculteurs en Ouganda. Leur maison est sur les rives du Nil et borde la République Démocratique du Congo.
Notre ambition avec Zombo Coffee Partners est de faire de la région du Nil occidental une origine de café de renommée mondiale.
Rejoignez-nous dans ce voyage !
About Zombo Coffee Partners
Zombo Coffee Partners are a hybrid of a private company, cooperative, milling station, NGO and exporter. They are focused on forming close relationships with smallholder farmers across the West Nile Region. Their guiding principles are to pay a fair price to farmers ensuring a sustainable livelihood. Sharing any profits with farmers every year as well as offering shares in their business to the farming groups that they work with.
This unique approach ensures that farmers are included in any decisions about the coffee they produce and ultimately see benefit from the proceeds of international sales of their coffees.
Our Partner Micro Stations
Ajere
For many years, a separate registered cooperative society had stopped trading the coffee of its members. In 2017, those farmers broke away and teamed up with Zombo’s development partner (AFCE) and constructed a new micro station within the boundaries of Zombo Town. The specialist equipment and materials for this project came from Oxfam, matched by farmer contributions of land and time.
Culamuk
In 2015, Oxfam Uganda and Twin UK partnered up to produce a micro-station in 2 months, which enabled them to produce a small volume of high-quality coffee. They sold this high scoring coffee to Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle, as well as additional coffee sourced from Leda and Pamitu micro stations.
Gonyobendo
Gonyobendo was created by the Nile Highland Arabica Coffee Farmers Association initially, supplied with just a pulper by USAID. They started by supplying a single multinational exporter. In 2018, Gonyobendo began working with Zombo Coffee Partners to improve the reach of its members coffee.
Sustainable farming with transparent pricing.
Zombo Timeline
The Zombo
Micro Station Model
Zombo offers a personal touch, working with 8 coffee micro stations where the farmers build, own, operate and supply cherry to them. Building this miniature central coffee washing station is well within the means of a small group of farmers to construct and manage, with a minimum amount of external support required.
The purpose of this initiative is to give smallholders ownership over increasing quality, consistency ultimately increasing selling price of their coffee. This will then maximise their income and let them participate meaningfully in the coffee value chain.
The Micro Station Principles
Small Scale
Specialty coffee production at the level of the village group of between 50 and 250 farmers.
Self-help
The members organise and contribute the resources to build the microstation framework (drying shed and tables, quality table, coffee store) themselves.
Equal farmer contribution
Each farmer makes a roughly equal contribution to the micro station by land, labour, construction, materials or cash.
Self-management
Members appoint a manager and operate the micro station themselves with voluntary or paid labour, most often a combination of both.
Increased farmer profitability
Micro stations produce taste profiles which are sold at premium prices that give farmers a better income for the coffee their smallholding produces. Cherry is bought from the farmers at above local market prices.
Equitable loans
The company provides the micro station management with an interest-free investment loan in the form of production equipment and materials, as well as interest-free crop and operational pre-finance.
Financial empowerment
Micro stations have the option to invest in the ZCP company on behalf of their members (target is 49% farmer-ownership by 2028).
Reward for quality
50% of all cup score premiums received for each microlot sold goes back direct to the individual farmer – cash in hand and according to their relative volume contribution – as additional income to the cherry price payment.
Review the 2020 Zombo Annual Report
A beautiful report highlighting Zombo's business impact and attained goals throughout 2020.
-
Who are Zombo Coffee Partners?Zombo Coffee Partners Ltd is a speciality coffee company working in close partnership with smallholder farmers based in the West Nile Region, Uganda.
-
Who manages Zombo Coffee Partners?Zombo Coffee Partners is run by management team Aggrey, Jason, Andy and Phiona. Zombo Coffee Partners take a unique approach to their business allowing shares in the company to be purchased by their partner farmers, giving them a greater say in how their coffee should be processed and exported. Their target is to have 49% of Zombo Coffee Partners farmer-owned by 2028.
-
Which micro stations do Zombo Coffee Partners work with?Zombo Coffee Partners work with 7 different micro stations. These are owned, managed and run by farmer groups from 20-250 members. The names of these micro stations are: Ajere - 85 members Ambe - 273 members Ayaka - 90 members Culamuk - 111 members Gonyobendo - 154 members Ndhew - 116 members Pamitu - 85 members
-
What is the traceability of Zombo Coffee?Each partner micro stations keep meticulous records of their members and the coffee they deliver. For each day-lot, each micro lot and each micro station we know which farmers delivered the coffee. At the moment we don’t cup every day-lots from every micro station, they are bulked into delivery lots of 60-100 bags, each of which we sample, cup, label and store separately.
-
How can I contact Zombo Coffee Partners?Reach out to Jason and Andy of Zombo Coffee Partners for a swift reply about everything you’d like to know about the projects. Jason Feriman - jason@zombocoffee.com Andy Carlton - andy@zombocoffee.com You can access their Website here Follow this link to connect with them on Instagram.
-
What is paid to farmers who work with Zombo Coffee Partners?In 2018-19 Zombo Coffee Partners stayed ahead of the competition on price to the farmer, paying an average of about 20% more. In 2019-20 the local price paid to farmers for their coffee cherry suddenly jumped. It started 60% higher than in 2018, even though the C-price was actually lower at that moment than it had been the year before. The much higher local price meant that ZCP could not afford to outbid the competition, as they would have run out of cash. Avoiding a much-feared price war with competitors we match the price, equivalent to USD 0.36 per kg of fresh cherry.
-
What coffee to Zombo Coffee Partners export?Zombo Coffee Partners offer an increasing range of coffees, as they expand partner micro stations and begin on organic conversion. Named micro station fully-washed Screen 15+ Named micro station fully-washed Screen 15+ Organic in conversion Named micro station natural Screen 15+ Zombo Classic fully-washed Screen 15+ (sourced from the group of micro stations) Zombo Classic fully-washed Screen 15+ Organic in conversion (from selected micro stations) Zombo Classic Peaberry (typically 6-8% of total production) Women’s natural coffee Screen 15+ (either from named micro stations or from the group) Culamuk micro station “Pacamara” fully-washed (Screen 16 to 20+, very small volumes) Ambe micro station yellow honey coffee Screen 15+ Gonyobendo micro station white honey coffee Screen 15+
-
Where is the Zombo Region?The Zombo region is a coffee-growing plateau in the Alur Highlands, located on the western banks of the Nile. It's a blind spot for most coffee people, but this area is home to the Alur people, who speak a Nilotic language that is not related to the majority Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa. There are strong cross-border family relationships with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
