Green coffee, digital solution: green economy promotion for sustainable cultivation

03.04.2024 - MULEMBE Coffee is not only characterized by fairly produced coffee, but also provides direct support and advice to coffee farmers on site in Uganda.

Anna Lina Bartl im Austausch mit den Kaffeebauern vor Ort in Afrika. — Anna Lina Bartl in conversation with local coffee farmers in Africa.

Begutachtung von Kaffeebohnen — Appraisal of coffee beans

The company MULEMBE Kaffee was founded in 2018 by Anna Lina Bartl from Hanover and stands for sustainable coffee at fair prices. MULEMBE Kaffee works with a total of 44 coffee producers on Masaba (Mount Elgon) in Uganda. The concept is based on the fact that the founder and her team regularly visit the farms and establish a direct connection with their customers in Germany, who purchase the coffee. MULEMBE Kaffee is a coffee roasting company that takes care of sales and also runs its own café. Managing Director Anna Lina Bartl is also the winner of the 2022 City of Hanover Award "Frauen machen Standort".

MULEMBE Kaffeetook partin the"Hannover Region Green Economy"funding programof the Hannover Region Economic Development Corporationand is using the €10,000 funding to implement a digital supply chain planning concept for transparent and sustainable coffee consumption. The innovation enables customers, processors and coffee farmers to be digitally networked with each other to achieve a high level of transparency. In addition, coffee cultivation is to be documented and optimized using a wide range of factors such as soil conditions and weather conditions. As a basis, all relevant data is collected and used digitally in order to optimize the entire coffee supply chain. This further development is particularly important, as an incredible amount of data is collected every week and there is currently no way of evaluating it efficiently. Thanks to digital processing using a newly designed app solution, the data can be properly analyzed in order to exploit its potential.

Anna Lina Bartl und ein Kaffeebauer mit der Lieferung für MULEMBE Kaffee. — Anna Lina Bartl and a coffee farmer with the delivery for MULEMBE coffee.

Climate protection is an important topic in the work of MULEMBE Kaffee. Founder Anna Lina Bartl was already studying the challenges of sustainable development in coffee production during her studies. During regular visits to Uganda lasting several weeks, Bartl maintains direct contact with the producers and passes on her expertise. In addition to purchasing coffee, she also discusses current problems in coffee cultivation and the latest progress in new projects for vanilla and cocoa cultivation, as well as honey production.

The biggest problem on the ground is the knowledge gap for good and efficient farming. TheMULEMBE Kaffeeteam has therefore set itself the goal of raising awareness and advising coffee farmers on sustainable cultivation. By recording a high level of data on the appearance of the leaves, soil conditions, etc., more targeted recommendations can bemade for further coffee cultivation.

"An app for our daily work can help us to make processes along the entire value chain more efficient and even more transparent. We can also evaluate our data better, identify correlations and risks more easily and thus find and implement holistic solutions to the challenges posed by climate change, among other things, even more effectively."

Anna Lina Bartl, founder of Mulembe Kaffee

Anna Lina Bartl berichtet den Kaffeebauer*innen. — Anna Lina Bartl reports to the coffee farmers.

The digital innovation of the app solution for better recording and use of data in coffee cultivation is a preventive measure for climate protection. MULEMBE Kaffee also offers year-round support on the ground in Uganda through scientific monitoring, fair prices and the empowerment of local producers. At the beginning of 2024, the MULEMBE Kaffee team was back on site for around 4 weeks to survey producers to find out how interested they were in using the app to collect data. Interest is high - the only problem will be that the coffee farmers unfortunately do not currently have smartphones available. The aim of the app is to use fields more efficiently. By measuring the fields that are stored in the app, certification and scalability can be simplified. In the future, innovative and efficient farming should also be transferable to other coffee farms. The concept for the digital supply chain for transparent and sustainable coffee enjoyment comes from deepIng business solutions GmbH from Hanover.

The basic idea behind MULEMBE coffee is based on the aspect of sustainability, so that even in times of climate change, drinking coffee under fair conditions should be and remain possible.