Our Story
In June of 2017, we (Tommie & Ludivine) realized that whilst we drink a lot of coffee and regularly worked at cafes, we didn't actually know where our coffee truly came from. We wanted to find out more about the coffee we were drinking, so we approached Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the second largest coffee producer in the world, with our questions.
Instead of giving us all the answers, they decided to send us to Uganda to answer these questions for ourselves. Believing that if we had these questions, other consumers would have them too. This apparent disconnect between the supply and demand of global coffee production lead to the founding of Marula, with the aim of sharing our findings with you and the world.
Our first project was to document the sustainability progress and issues that exist within Uganda's coffee supply chain. This resulted in a documentary where we interviewed more than 50 stakeholders to understand all aspects of the coffee value chain.
Since then, Marula has expanded beyond coffee and has decided to focus on two key issue that stood out to us. We believe that solving these is a priority to ensure the sustainability of the coffee and agriculture sector of Uganda:
- The high youth unemployment rate in Uganda
- The low youth engagement in the agriculture industry
Marula's vision is to integrate the youth into agriculture.