Gumutindu Coffee Uganda 

Orixa systems was chosen as the business system for Gumutindu Coffee a Fairtrade coffee company processing beans in Eastern Uganda.

The system comprised a farmer-monitoring and factory-management module, used by field officers and factory staff. As with all Orixa systems the two systems were integrated, so that field-officer records relating to farmers were directly linked to factory and warehouse records of farmer-purchases.

This enabled a high level of traceability and accountability ensuring that all systems complied with international standards with the minimum of bureaucratic effort.

Gumutindu Photo History

Coffee parchment drying outside the Gumutindu factory  

Key facts about Gumutindu

1. Gumutindu work with a total of about 8,000 farmers out of the city of Mbale in Eastern Uganda.
2. Their farmers grow coffee on the slopes of mount Elgon, one of the high mountain peaks of East Africa, with a peak at 4,300 metres. The extinct volcano's soil is ideally fertile for coffee cultivation.
3. Gumutindu work out of 4 collection centres which border the mountain, collecting "parchment", unprocessed coffee beans. Much of this is dry-processed, but increasingly farmers are encouraged to wet-process their beans, which result in products with higher quality and value.
4. Hundreds of staff work at the companies central milling factory in Mbale where thousands of tonnes are milled and sorted prior to export to world markets.
5. Gumutindu undertake a wide program of farmer training and education, including the use of many improved technologies which help reduce envirnomental damage and increase sustainability of farm-management.
6. Farmers on the slopes of Mount Elgon suffer the constand risk of earth-slides in which farms and houses can be carried away or buried in the rapid destruction of land due to the instability of the volcanoes geology.

Coffee Seedling station	Coffee sorting stations in Gumutinudu's factory in Mbale
Coffee farmer Charles Swewe	Gumutindu Grading out-turn report - An example of data provided by Orixa for Gumutinu staff and management