Specialty coffee with unique flavour profiles and a
tenacious approach to impact.

About Us

Zombo Coffee Partners is a small coffee exporter based in Uganda. We 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”. Our 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. As our customer, you get to choose which microstation’s coffee you like best!

We offer a range of natural and washed coffees, with a unique and increasing range as we expand partner micro stations and begin on organic conversion. Hulled, polished, screened and sorted, green Arabica coffee beans of the highest quality are packed and exported from our factory, Julia Park, Nebbi to destinations around the world.

Discover the rich, aromatic flavours of our roasted coffee. You can find our exceptional coffee at retail outlets in Kampala and around the country, bringing the authentic taste of Ugandan coffee to your home. We produce our own roasted coffee which is available at retail outlets in Kampala and around the country.

What does our coffee taste like?

Beyond the high scores, this was a truly amazing coffee to profile, where small adjustments would highlight different flavour notes. This profile highlighted the most intense grapey floral notes, along with intense cooked fruit and tropical sweetness, a creamy mouthfeel and a long-lasting finish.

Rambert Sin, Pop Coffee Works

Wow! The natural from Ndhew microstation is unique, when you drink it, it feels like a woman giving you a warm hug!

Renée Engelsman, Grounded Investment Company

Organic coffee

We are in conversion to organic with 4,500 farmers at 15 microstations. Certification is planned for the 2025-26 crop year.

Brewing Change

Impact

Our promise, agreed with all our buyers, is that our price for fresh cherry will never drop below $0.60 per kg, no matter what happens in the global marketplace. And whenever we make a profit, we will share it with all our farmers.

Andy Carlton, Founder

There are so many ways our farmers are improving their lives. Microstations create reliable employment deep in the village where paid work is very scarce. Members learn to handle large sums of money and account accurately for them. They learn how to be in a long-term partnership with a commercial company.

Aggrey Chombe, Production Director

Rabo Foundation impact survey

In late 2023 a telephone phone survey of 297 of our farmers was carried out on behalf of our trade finance lender, Rabo Foundation. It covered four “dimensions”; living standards, resilience, coffee farming outlook and food security. The major finding was that our farmers are thriving at a level of 67 out of 100.

Agency For Community Empowerment

We work very closely with a local NGO in Nebbi, AFCE. Its coordinator, Aggrey Chombe, is the production director of the Zombo Coffee Partners. AFCE carries out projects across the development spectrum, from public health to bee-keeping, from gender justice to planting trees for carbon credits. It sources the funding farmers use to construct their microstations, and employs the community-based staff who train farmers in climate-smart, regenerative agriculture. We could not achieve our goals as a company without the help of AFCE.

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The microstation model – how it works

1.

Zombo Coffee Partners pre-finances 15 microstations each year so that they can buy coffee from farmers. Our floor price guarantee is $0.60 per kg of fresh cherry, which is slightly above the Fairtrade Living Income reference price for arabica coffee from Uganda.
The targets are set in discussion between Zombo and the Microstation. Each microstation has its volume target and as the season progresses, maintains records of all farmer deliveries and payments.
Some microstations process more coffee than others. The largest, Gonyobendo, has around 500 farmers while the smallest, Jukia Park, has about 50.
Members elect a committee and operate the microstation with a combination of voluntary and paid labour. The members are all coffee farmers.
Between 1,500 and 2,500 farmers sell their cherry to the microstations, depending on the year. The number of farmers is growing steadily.

2.

During the harvest we visit each microstation regularly to advise, troubleshoot and keep an eye on cherry quality—ripe cherry is key! Apart from these visits and the prefinance, the microstations carry out primary processing independently.
Microstations do not produce export-ready coffee. They transform fresh cherry into dry coffee in the form of parchment (“washed”) coffee or dry cherry (“natural”) coffee.

3.

The dry coffee is delivered to our factory at Jukia Park outside Nebbi town, where it is inspected for quality and moisture. If fully dry, it is accepted. If not, it is dried by the microstation members within our factory compound. Microstations are paid an additional fee for each kg of coffee delivered, for the preprocessing they do.
Once accepted by the factory it is hulled, polished, screened, sorted and bagged for export.
After the season we hold a workshop with all the microstation committees to review the season’s successes and challenges, plan the upcoming harvest, and announce the year’s profit share.