Okebu Women's coffee

Okebu Women's coffee

250 g
€13,90
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Okebu Women's coffee
  • Okebu Women's coffee
Okebu Women's coffee

Okebu Women's coffee

€13,90
Taxes included. Shipping calculated at checkout.
Species Arabica
Variety SL14
Process Natural
Origin Alur Highlands, Zombo District, Uganda
exporter Zombo Coffee
Importer This Side Up
Height 1500 - 1800 masl
Taste notes Rose, Plum, and Grapefruit
Agtron 70 whole, 120 ground
Bag size

About this coffee

Some years ago, Zombo Coffee set up 15 microstations across Uganda's Alur Highlands. Owned and operated by local farmer groups, these microstations buy coffee cherry from farmers through a number of local buying points.

With pre-financing support from Zombo Coffee, the microstations purchase cherry, process it and sell the dried coffee to Zombo's factory for final preparation and export. For this coffee, the cherries were dried on raised beds to produce a natural process.

This Side Up, the importer for this coffee, has been a steady trading partner of Zombo Coffee and came up with the idea of keeping the coffee from individual buying points separate. The additional lot separation takes place at the microstation, allowing coffees from each buying point to remain distinct. Zombo implemented this concept at the Ndhew microstation, resulting in over 10 separate lots of coffee.

This coffee comes from the Okebu buying point of the Ndhew microstation and consists of cherry delivered by women farmers.

Pricing breakdown

For each bag sold, we trace the money as far as we reasonably can: from payments at origin, through processing, transport and importing, to the costs of roasting and selling the coffee. We believe there is value in sharing this information, while framing it with the necessary care.

The numbers below are based on a 250 g bag size.
€1,70 for the farmers

The women who grew this coffee sold their freshly picked coffee cherries at the Okebu buying point for 3250 UGX/kg or roughly €0,80/kg. That only accounts for €1,48 per 250 g bag. The remainder accounts for quality premiums and primary processing at the Ndhew microstation.
€0,70 for the exporter, Zombo

Zombo receives the dried coffee - with the dried cherry hulls still attached - from the microstation, and prepares it for export. This involves hulling, screening, sorting, and bagging the coffee.

Running total: €2,40
€0,08 for transport and customs

Since Uganda is a landlocked country, the coffee was first transported by truck from Nebbi to Mombasa, where it was loaded onto a freight ship and continued its journey to the Netherlands.

€0,08 covers the transport, customs and taxes involved in this whole process.

Running total: €2,48
€1,04 for the importer, This Side Up

This Side Up is extremely transparent in their pricing, which allows us to break this down further:

  • €0,02 regenerative premium - earmarked for ecological upgrades at origin
  • €0,03 women’s coffee premium - earmarked as a bonus incentive for gender participation at origin
  • €0,38 covering their labor and overhead
  • €0,03 TSU profit
  • €0,73 covering various other costs, including warehousing, financing, etc.

We are immensely grateful to This Side Up for their exemplary role in using transparency to guide the conversation around economical sustainability.

Running total: €3,52
€1,31 roasting overhead

Roasting coffee requires a workspace, roasting equipment and energy, as well as the machinery and materials needed to pack and label the finished coffee. We currently estimate these costs to be €1,31 per bag of roasted coffee, regardless of the specific coffee.

Running total: €4,83
The remainder covers investments, expenses and donations

We apply fixed margins based on our cost. For retail, that's 65%; for wholesale that's 40%; rounded up to the next decimal. In numbers, if a coffee costs us €10, retail pricing is €28,60; wholesale is €16,70. For this particular coffee, at this pricing, we retain €9,07. This covers taxes, allows us to invest in coffee and materials, and donate to our beneficiaries.

If you bought this coffee through any other platform, the only number that can vary is how much is going to us and how much is going to the seller.

Final total: €13,90

About the exporter, Zombo Coffee

Zombo Coffee Partners is a small coffee exporter based in Uganda. They supply specialty-quality arabica coffee as nano-lots and microlots, up to full containers. The coffee is produced by farmer groups in the Alur Highlands of north-west Uganda, in their own tiny processing factories known as “microstations”. These 15 microstation partners offer handcrafted Natural and Washed coffees. The cup profile of each microstation is a little different, reflecting the range of elevations, terroirs and processing practices.

About the importer, This Side Up

The fundamental difference between an importer and This Side Up is that they don’t shop for different coffees every year, but represent origin partners with whom they share a common vision - year in year out. Together they develop the best ways to support each other economically, socially and ecologically.

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