www.kabum.org 路 hello@kabum.org +1.877.KABUM.24 (+1-877-522-8624) PO Box 2217 路 Sisters, OR 97759 USA
The demand for superb coffee is great. The need for change is greater. There’s fair trade coffee. There’s farmer co-op coffee. And then there’s Kabum Coffee — some of the best beans grown anywhere on the planet. All backed by a business model that’s fully, entirely and wholeheartedly humanitarian-based. It’s a new idea whose time has come. After all, in the world economy, the appetite for coffee is second only to that of oil in the commodities markets. Consequently, there’s no shortage of beans being grown on farmland around the globe. But in the vast majority of those regions, local growers — the ones who toil and sweat in their fields every day — rarely see any real profits from their efforts.
Introducing True Trade. Enter ideas like “fair trade,” “direct trade” and “farmer co-op.” They’ve gone a long way toward improving the price paid to farmers and toward making sure they’re more fairly compensated for their hard work and for their product. At Kabum, we think it’s time to quite literally take things up a notch. Or several notches. Whereas fair trade raises the floor of what local farmers are paid, we blow the ceiling off — by sending the vast majority of profits back to the individual growers. We also pay retroactive bonuses for a quality product after harvest time and administer microloans so individual farmers can own their land and equipment, thus ensuring they aren’t beholden to others in the harvesting process. We call this truly humanitarian-based way of doing things “True Trade.”
A double half-caf, no foam, with a side of self-sustaining prosperity. Like we said, Kabum is a different kind of coffee company. We’re born entirely of altruistic, humanitarian interests with one goal in mind: to make as much money as possible for the people of Uganda by allowing them to bypass typical middlemen and sell their coffee direct to buyers on the world market. By doing that, they’re able to sustain themselves and begin turning their country and their economy in a different direction — much like is happening right now in neighboring Rwanda and Burundi. Because coffee is such a huge commodity, it brings with it tremendous earning potential. As a result, countless farmers and growers in emerging cultures have been exploited over the years. That quickly became clear to our founders back in 2003 when we first ventured to the western slopes of Mt. Elgon to help drill a well that would provide clean drinking water to the community of Kapchorwa. After succeeding in providing the village with a clean water source
and spending several years to set-up and administer a child sponsorship program, we began to realize the tremendous coffee growing potential the area had and how, if that system could be effectively put into place, it would be a classic case of “teach a man to fish and you’ll teach him to eat for a lifetime.”
The little engine that can. With all this in mind, we’ve established relationships with a group of 30 farmers who now form the core membership of the Kabum co-op (some of whom each represent up to 10-12 farmers). These farmers are the first of many who will pay off micro-loans for their land, washing stations and infrastructure within five years. After that, the land, the washing stations and everything else they need to sustain themselves will belong to them. We’ll remain in the picture only as administrators. Not middlemen. Not resellers. Just a stewarding team of businessmen who want to make sure the farmers themselves continue to have direct access to buyers and, in turn, the highest profits the market will bear for them. That’s True Trade and therein, we believe, lies the engine that can power huge change.
Today Uganda. Tomorrow the world. While we’ve been in the region working since 2003, our movement is now reaching the tipping point. Years of hard work have paid off and Kabum’s True Trade concept is gaining momentum. Which is great, because we don’t plan on stopping at Uganda’s borders. Our next goal is to take our concept of maximizing profits for local farmers to different agricultural industries and different countries around the globe — all in an effort to free the oppressed, empower the weak and provide for those who can’t provide for themselves.
The best coffee. In. The. World. Without an amazing product, we’d be just another coffee company with a warm, fuzzy business plan. Fortunately, as luck would have it, Mt. Elgon just so happens to be blessed with a mix of latitude and altitude that doesn’t exist many other places on earth. Consequently, the highland, shadegrown Arabica beans from the area are nothing short of stellar. Michigan State University’s tests confirmed that the region’s beans also benefit from the rich volcanic soil and equatorial latitude. Bottom line: Kabum isn’t just about supporting a great cause. It’s also about producing the best coffee available anywhere.
Have world-class coffee, will travel. High on the western slopes of Mt. Elgon you’ll find our coffee plants ripening beneath the Ugandan sun. Here in the Sipi Falls area of the Kapchorwa District, Bugisu Arabica thrives — something that only happens in a very narrow altitude (between 1,600 and 1,900 meters).
Say hello to the reasons we do what we do. You’d be hard-pressed to find a warmer, more loving, more hard-working people than the residents of Kapchorwa. We can’t think of a better reason to build a different kind of coffee company, can you?
Farmer spotlight: Janet Chemonges. Janet’s husband left her while she was pregnant with their sixth child after he made several bad business decisions, became an alcoholic and sold the tractor and grinding machine she had worked so hard to purchase for their farm. While she had lost a lot, she still had her children and her land. That’s when Kabum entered the picture. We were able to help her with a micro-loan which she used to establish a thriving coffee crop on her farm. As a result, she’s provided for her family, has remarried and all seven of her children are healthy and thriving.
www.kabum.org 路 hello@kabum.org +1.877.KABUM.24 (+1-877-522-8624) PO Box 2217 路 Sisters, OR 97759 USA