Products
All our products are sourced ethically and in a sustainable manner.
We believe that all chain actors should be transparent and accountable for their actions
Our suppliers and buyers always get advisory support to enable their business growth and sustainability
Coffee
For our customers, we provide access to all the major coffee producing origins in Uganda, from individual farmers selling a few kilos of coffee cherries in Rwenzori to large plantations and traders across Uganda, that deal in hundreds of tonnes of export-ready product. We offer value to our customers through our simplicity, local and international market insights, efficiency, innovation, and reliability.
For our suppliers, many of whom we have worked with for over a decade, we provide support and predictability. Our capacity-building services are directly offered to coffee suppliers under producer organizations, who train in sustainable production techniques and good agricultural practices.
At lamuka, we work smart and hard at being the partner of choice within our space because we know what it takes to keep our customers and suppliers happy, hence always leaving better than we found them.
Cocoa
Cocoa from Uganda and DR Congo is already well known for its unique flavor profiles due to its unique weather and proximity to the equator.
Farmers in Uganda specifically grow a mix of hybrids with origins from South America.
We always strive to improve the systems and quality for our producers and our own while we source cocoa using sustainable and ethical channels.
For example in Bundibugyo, Uganda's major cocoa-producing district, located on the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains, we work through farmer cooperatives that are both Fairtrade, organic certified and Rainforest Alliance certified. Here we support more than 10000 farmers, through these groups and registered traders.
Vanilla
We offer green Vanilla from beautiful orchid (v. planifolia) species.
Vanilla is generally very difficult to grow and nurture because quality vanilla only cared for good vines under good management practices will produce a sweet test and with a fine flavour because it cannot self pollinate and because the pollen is highly inaccessible to most pollinating insects. All the vanilla produced in Uganda is pollinated by hand, and our producers have to keep an eye on their vines as each flower because pollen viability and stigma receptibility lasts no more than 24 hours
Generally, Uganda located on the equator and has an ideal bimodal climate for vanilla farming with two harvest seasons in January and July). All vanilla grown today is hand pollinated because the flower is open for only one day, so producers have to watch their crop very diligently
The market for green vanilla in Uganda is usually un predictable and so competitive, requiring constant close with producers all the year round in order to obtain vanilla beans of highest quality.
In Uganda most Vanilla curing takes place in Kampala. The curing process usually includes scalding, sweating, slow drying and conditioning of the beans and which can take upto six months.
We currently offer linkages and do procure green vanilla from a number of groups and individual farmer scattered all over the slopes of beautiful Rwenzori Mountain.