Rugasira shares 50% of his profit with suppliers
Jul 03, 2008
SOME Ugandans are taking the initiative to tackle community problems in spheres such as education, health, youth, agriculture, technology, women and children’s rights and other social projects. Andrew Rugasira, a coffee entreprenuer, is one of the people The New Vision readers identified.
SOME Ugandans are taking the initiative to tackle community problems in spheres such as education, health, youth, agriculture, technology, women and children’s rights and other social projects. Andrew Rugasira, a coffee entreprenuer, is one of the people The New Vision readers identified.
By Edna Mubiru
His name is familiar to all who deal in coffee in the hot, dusty town of Kasese. Some have only praises to sing of Andrew Rugasira and his company, Good African Coffee. Others find his presence an inconvenience.
He has replaced their cheating business with one that benefits not only him but the community as well.
In 2002 when he went to Kasese, Rugasira found farmers with a lot of potential but lacking a proper market for their coffee. The poor market was mostly because they had poor quality coffee beans.
The buyers wanted to make the most out of the farmers and cheated them most of the time. The farmers lacked training in basic methods of coffee farming and their trees were old and unproductive.
“The coffee they were getting was not as much as they would have got if they just paid more attention to their trees,†Bob Mugisha, the logistics officer at the Kasese office of Good African Coffee, says.
In a bid to create a business relationship that would benefit both the farmers and the company, Rugasira started a programme to train them.
With the help of Prime West, a USAID-funded project, Good African Coffee embarked on training and provision of machinery for the farmers in Kasese.
Since they started, they have registered 14,000 farmers. This success is celebrated by both Good African Coffee and the farmers.
But why would a businessman invest in a project and still pay more than other traders are paying?
“Investing in these farmers is investing in myself. If the farmers benefit, we benefit by getting better cherries from them,†Rugasira says.
“For five years I did business the usual way but it was not fulfilling in any way.†The profits of Good African are shared between the community and the business shareholders.
That, to Rugasira, is a sustainable business relationship and it is what he wants other companies to take up.
“This is not a new business model; it is what companies in Europe and America are doing,†he adds.
He explains that Nestle, a beverage company, built hospitals, schools and other infrastructure in the town of Bourneville.
He adds that the approach builds communities based on love, kindness and unity. That is what he defines as a beneficial producer/buyer relationship.
The company was not received with open arms though. The farmers thought they would be robbed of their coffee as had happened in the past. They were very cautious about the company.
The buyers who were interested in the the dry processed coffee ‘de-campaigned’ the new method and this made farmers shy away from it.
The problem was not long lived though. When they realised the benefits of using the new method, they took it up very fast.
“We distributed buckets, pulpers to remove the skin from the berries, nets and tarpaulin on which to dry the coffee for the farmers to use communally,†says Rugasira.
“There are only a few laggards who are waiting to see the results from the other farmers before they can start using the new techniques,†Janet Matte, the farmer liaison officer, says.
Some of these have resorted to selling their coffee to farmers attached to Good African Coffee.
Yekonia Thembo is one of those that took up the method as soon as the training started.
“I realised a difference when I used the wet method of processing. The coffee was heavier by almost quarter a kilogramme and that increased the price. I have not gone back to the old method,†he says.
Currently, he is the biggest supplier of all the farmers Good African Coffee works with. This feat he manages by buying coffee from other farmers and selling it to Good African Coffee.
“1 think they are wasting good coffee by using the old (dry) method so I buy it from them at a fair price and sell it to Good African,†he explains. Being the biggest supplier has its benefits.
Thembo’s group now has its own coffee pulper because they supply the largest amounts. For Pius Bwanandeke, the coffee business became lucrative after he adopted the methods that the trainers taught him.
He was working in Kampala as a freelance journalist but he let his profession take a backseat as he puts more time into growing coffee. And since Good African is buying the coffee at a higher price, he is making more money.
Freelance journalism would not have helped him acquire the seven acres of land he now owns in a short period, and he can still practise his profession when he wants to.
“The wet method of processing coffee, which the people of Good African taught us, is better because only our ripe fruits are picked,†he says.
Before they were trained, they used to ‘milk’ the coffee branches; a process where all the berries, whether ripe or raw, were picked from the tree and dried before it was ‘beaten’ to remove the husks.
After that, it would be sold. But because it was poorly processed, the amount they would get out of it would be little and the coffee buyers would under-price it.
The community of coffee farmers in Kasese is poor and yet they have basic needs. In order to meet the needs, they used to mortgage their crop to the buyers in order to get some money when the coffee was not ready for picking.
They lost any authority over the gardens when the season started because the buyers would pick all the coffee from their gardens. This left them in a vicious cycle of need and debt.
This is about to end though since Good African Limited started a saving scheme for the farmers. They are organised in groups of 50 and a bank account is opened for the groups.
“It is not easy for them to bring hard cash to save so we ask them to save their crop,†the manager of the branch in Kasese, Edrisa Sendagire, says.
Saving their crop means they bring a portion of coffee as savings and Good African officials convert it into money and send it to the bank accounts.
Through the saving scheme, they are expected to borrow from each other and pay back at a low interest rate in order to meet their urgent needs.
Rugasira believes that the private sector has a duty to empower the community and their suppliers. “We need to do corporate social responsibility programmes that are more than just public relations activities if our communities are to develop,†he says.
The values that he cherishes are the drivers and motivation to continue helping the communities. To him, privilege comes with responsibility and those that have are duty-bound to help those that do not have.
Sharing with the community
“My faith and the values embedded in my faith are the reason I share the profits with the communities,†Rugasira says.
“I believe we have been placed on the earth for a purpose bigger than our selfish interests.â€
The Kasese farmers’ communities will recieve 50% of the profits made by Good African Coffee. This will be ploughed back as soon as they find a viable project that can be run by the community members.
Smaller projects have already taken off. For instance, some of the HIV/AIDS positive mothers in the district were given sewing machines to make a living.
“Doing business this way, is more fulfilling even though challenging. It is enjoyable and spiritually rewarding,†Rugasira says.
Andrew Rugasira opted for coffee and not any other cash crop because it is a field where expertise has developed over time. He needed a field where the knowledge was already in existence.
All he had to do was bring in some people, such as John Namisi, the quality assurance officer and the work could proceed.
The coffee wet-processing method has been used in some parts of Uganda such as Mbale.
Good African Coffee was the first African coffee company to have their roasted and ground coffee in the largest supermarkets in the UK.
They are in the process of making smaller mor affordable packages for the Ugandan market.
Besides, Rugasira thinks Africa needs trade more that aid, which is the message he preached at the launch of the Ugandan packed coffee that is the first to break into the European market.
Name: Andrew Rugasira
Project:,/b> Good African Coffee
In his words
“My faith and the values embedded in my faith is the reason I share profits from my business with the communities.â€
Contact
Plot 1-3 Spring Road
5th Street Industrial Area Bugolobi
P.O.Box 1718, Kampala
email: andrew.rugasira@goodafrican.com
Website: www.goodafrican.com
By Edna Mubiru
His name is familiar to all who deal in coffee in the hot, dusty town of Kasese. Some have only praises to sing of Andrew Rugasira and his company, Good African Coffee. Others find his presence an inconvenience.
He has replaced their cheating business with one that benefits not only him but the community as well.
In 2002 when he went to Kasese, Rugasira found farmers with a lot of potential but lacking a proper market for their coffee. The poor market was mostly because they had poor quality coffee beans.
The buyers wanted to make the most out of the farmers and cheated them most of the time. The farmers lacked training in basic methods of coffee farming and their trees were old and unproductive.
“The coffee they were getting was not as much as they would have got if they just paid more attention to their trees,†Bob Mugisha, the logistics officer at the Kasese office of Good African Coffee, says.
In a bid to create a business relationship that would benefit both the farmers and the company, Rugasira started a programme to train them.
With the help of Prime West, a USAID-funded project, Good African Coffee embarked on training and provision of machinery for the farmers in Kasese.
Since they started, they have registered 14,000 farmers. This success is celebrated by both Good African Coffee and the farmers.
But why would a businessman invest in a project and still pay more than other traders are paying?
“Investing in these farmers is investing in myself. If the farmers benefit, we benefit by getting better cherries from them,†Rugasira says.
“For five years I did business the usual way but it was not fulfilling in any way.†The profits of Good African are shared between the community and the business shareholders.
That, to Rugasira, is a sustainable business relationship and it is what he wants other companies to take up.
“This is not a new business model; it is what companies in Europe and America are doing,†he adds.
He explains that Nestle, a beverage company, built hospitals, schools and other infrastructure in the town of Bourneville.
He adds that the approach builds communities based on love, kindness and unity. That is what he defines as a beneficial producer/buyer relationship.
The company was not received with open arms though. The farmers thought they would be robbed of their coffee as had happened in the past. They were very cautious about the company.
The buyers who were interested in the the dry processed coffee ‘de-campaigned’ the new method and this made farmers shy away from it.
The problem was not long lived though. When they realised the benefits of using the new method, they took it up very fast.
“We distributed buckets, pulpers to remove the skin from the berries, nets and tarpaulin on which to dry the coffee for the farmers to use communally,†says Rugasira.
“There are only a few laggards who are waiting to see the results from the other farmers before they can start using the new techniques,†Janet Matte, the farmer liaison officer, says.
Some of these have resorted to selling their coffee to farmers attached to Good African Coffee.
Yekonia Thembo is one of those that took up the method as soon as the training started.
“I realised a difference when I used the wet method of processing. The coffee was heavier by almost quarter a kilogramme and that increased the price. I have not gone back to the old method,†he says.
Currently, he is the biggest supplier of all the farmers Good African Coffee works with. This feat he manages by buying coffee from other farmers and selling it to Good African Coffee.
“1 think they are wasting good coffee by using the old (dry) method so I buy it from them at a fair price and sell it to Good African,†he explains. Being the biggest supplier has its benefits.
Thembo’s group now has its own coffee pulper because they supply the largest amounts. For Pius Bwanandeke, the coffee business became lucrative after he adopted the methods that the trainers taught him.
He was working in Kampala as a freelance journalist but he let his profession take a backseat as he puts more time into growing coffee. And since Good African is buying the coffee at a higher price, he is making more money.
Freelance journalism would not have helped him acquire the seven acres of land he now owns in a short period, and he can still practise his profession when he wants to.
“The wet method of processing coffee, which the people of Good African taught us, is better because only our ripe fruits are picked,†he says.
Before they were trained, they used to ‘milk’ the coffee branches; a process where all the berries, whether ripe or raw, were picked from the tree and dried before it was ‘beaten’ to remove the husks.
After that, it would be sold. But because it was poorly processed, the amount they would get out of it would be little and the coffee buyers would under-price it.
The community of coffee farmers in Kasese is poor and yet they have basic needs. In order to meet the needs, they used to mortgage their crop to the buyers in order to get some money when the coffee was not ready for picking.
They lost any authority over the gardens when the season started because the buyers would pick all the coffee from their gardens. This left them in a vicious cycle of need and debt.
This is about to end though since Good African Limited started a saving scheme for the farmers. They are organised in groups of 50 and a bank account is opened for the groups.
“It is not easy for them to bring hard cash to save so we ask them to save their crop,†the manager of the branch in Kasese, Edrisa Sendagire, says.
Saving their crop means they bring a portion of coffee as savings and Good African officials convert it into money and send it to the bank accounts.
Through the saving scheme, they are expected to borrow from each other and pay back at a low interest rate in order to meet their urgent needs.
Rugasira believes that the private sector has a duty to empower the community and their suppliers. “We need to do corporate social responsibility programmes that are more than just public relations activities if our communities are to develop,†he says.
The values that he cherishes are the drivers and motivation to continue helping the communities. To him, privilege comes with responsibility and those that have are duty-bound to help those that do not have.
Sharing with the community
“My faith and the values embedded in my faith are the reason I share the profits with the communities,†Rugasira says.
“I believe we have been placed on the earth for a purpose bigger than our selfish interests.â€
The Kasese farmers’ communities will recieve 50% of the profits made by Good African Coffee. This will be ploughed back as soon as they find a viable project that can be run by the community members.
Smaller projects have already taken off. For instance, some of the HIV/AIDS positive mothers in the district were given sewing machines to make a living.
“Doing business this way, is more fulfilling even though challenging. It is enjoyable and spiritually rewarding,†Rugasira says.
Andrew Rugasira opted for coffee and not any other cash crop because it is a field where expertise has developed over time. He needed a field where the knowledge was already in existence.
All he had to do was bring in some people, such as John Namisi, the quality assurance officer and the work could proceed.
The coffee wet-processing method has been used in some parts of Uganda such as Mbale.
Good African Coffee was the first African coffee company to have their roasted and ground coffee in the largest supermarkets in the UK.
They are in the process of making smaller mor affordable packages for the Ugandan market.
Besides, Rugasira thinks Africa needs trade more that aid, which is the message he preached at the launch of the Ugandan packed coffee that is the first to break into the European market.
Name: Andrew Rugasira
Project:,/b> Good African Coffee
In his words
“My faith and the values embedded in my faith is the reason I share profits from my business with the communities.â€
Contact
Plot 1-3 Spring Road
5th Street Industrial Area Bugolobi
P.O.Box 1718, Kampala
email: andrew.rugasira@goodafrican.com
Website: www.goodafrican.com