Coffee with a mission

Meine van der Graaf, Head of Impact at Dutch specialty coffee roaster Wakuli, has just returned from Tanzania. He stayed in Mbinga, the village where the coffee farmers Wakuli works with live. “Together with the farmers, we are currently looking for good, natural alternatives to pesticides and chemical fertilizers,” Van der Graaf says.

Founded in 2019 with financial support from Rabobank, Dutch company Wakuli is more than a coffee roaster. From day one, Wakuli’s mission has been to operate in a “radically transparent and fair” way—by working directly with small-scale coffee farmers in twelve different countries and selling directly to coffee consumers. For many smallholder farmers, specialty coffee—high-quality coffee—offers a way out of poverty.

The name Wakuli is derived from wakulima, the Swahili word for “farmers.” “That’s where it all starts: with the farmers,” Van der Graaf says. “They need to be rewarded for the quality they deliver, so they can make a good living from their production—both now and in the future.”

Wakuli makes agreements on both quality—which must meet specialty coffee standards—and price. In recent years, the amount the coffee roaster pays has been 30 to 40 percent above the market price. And rather than searching each season for the middleman with the cheapest beans—and therefore the highest profit margin, which is the strategy of the average coffee giant—Wakuli builds long-term relationships. “The coffee farmers we work with know that we’ll be back next year,” Van der Graaf says.

The collaboration goes beyond the quality of the green coffee and the price paid for it. It is also about the long-term resilience of the farming business—and of the planet. Wakuli helps farmers improve the soil step by step through what is known as regenerative agriculture.

“If we don’t take action now,” Van der Graaf says, “there won’t be any coffee left in 25 years. In many places, coffee cultivation is extremely destructive, and the soil becomes so depleted that naturally fertile land gradually stops producing anything at all.”

The scale of Wakuli’s investments—and indirectly Rabobank’s—is human and manageable, but the difference it makes in farmers’ living conditions is significant. Van der Graaf explains: “In Zombo, a savanna region in Uganda, the situation was dire. Thanks in part to the production of compost and liquid organic fertilizer, harvests have in some cases quadrupled. Several farmers and their families who used to live in mud huts now live in brick houses.”

One of Wakuli’s key partners is Ndugu, a social enterprise that represents Ugandan coffee farmer cooperatives and works with Rabo Foundation. Martijn Harlaar is one of its founders. Five years ago, he started Ndugu together with two Ugandan business partners. Today, they work with more than thirty cooperatives and ten thousand farmers.

Harlaar explains what Ndugu does: “The cooperatives that represent farmers are in contact with buyers, but they often lack the funds to pay farmers immediately for the harvested coffee cherries.”

A company like Wakuli pays once the coffee is ready for shipment in a container in Kampala. But by then, the bean has already completed a long journey: the ripe coffee cherries have been picked, sorted, dried, and hulled. The best remaining beans are then prepared for export. Weeks—and sometimes even months—can pass between picking and shipping.

As a result, many farmers are under pressure. Given the choice between selling to a cooperative for a better price but delayed payment, or selling their coffee to a middleman at a lower price, many are forced to choose the latter. “With support from Rabo Foundation,” Harlaar says, “we can pre-finance the cooperatives. This means farmers receive their money right away, while also getting the higher price.”

Ndugu also supports the cooperatives on several levels. In addition to providing financing during the harvest season, Ndugu helps them organize and digitize their administration and business operations, obtain sustainability certifications, and—like Wakuli—grow coffee in a more sustainable way.

“We provide practical training, for example on producing natural fertilizer, and to improve both the soil and the coffee beans, we plant seedlings of other crops among the coffee plants.” These interventions not only improve the quality and sustainability of the coffee, but also increase yields.

The impact on farmers’ standard of living is visible: their farms are expanding, and walking is giving way to scooters. More children are going to school. The start of the school year, Harlaar explains, usually falls just before the coffee season. At exactly the moment when farmers are most short on cash, they have to pay school fees. “Through us, they can take out a low-cost loan,” Harlaar says, “which they repay through a coffee delivery.”

Many of the customers Ndugu supplies are primarily interested in the end product, Harlaar continues. “But Wakuli is a partner whose commitment goes far beyond a single transaction or container. They pay a fair price and at the same time actively work to improve production and regenerative practices.”

In Central Uganda, for example, Wakuli buys robusta coffee. Together with Ndugu, Wakuli is working to improve its quality—something that is far from standard for robusta, a type of coffee that is usually used for instant coffee or private-label blends.

“At Wakuli, we see a different role for robusta,” Van der Graaf says. “People who enjoy this traditional coffee deserve the very best, too. That’s what we’re working on with cooperatives in the Ndugu network.”

And what about the consumers at the other end of the chain? They seem to be happy, too. Wakuli serves tens of thousands of customers each month and has 21 successful stores in the Netherlands. The coffee is roasted and then delivered directly to customers’ doorsteps or placed on store shelves.

More than half of customers choose Wakuli because they enjoy the taste of the coffee; the rest choose it because of the company’s approach. Both are important. As Van der Graaf puts it: “Without quality, you don’t have a distinctive product. And without a close relationship with farmers, you don’t create real impact.”