“It is my personal mission to stop the exploitation of farmers by middlemen”
Godfrey Kiwumulo started VanillaPoint to contribute to his farming family back home. He moved to the Netherlands for his family, but knows better than anyone how rich the soil in Uganda is and the challenges local farmers face.
He was amazed by the quality of vanilla in Dutch supermarkets and realized how big the demand actually was for good quality vanilla. That's how his adventure with VanillaPoint started.
In general, farmers have too much to do with middlemen who put pressure on prices. Farmers are often forced to sell their goods for too low a price. Many vanilla suppliers want to show that they have a good relationship with the farmers. Unfortunately, in practice this often turns out not to be true.
"I want to change that by fighting for fair prices, so that farmers can work as sustainably as possible. We deliver the best quality and I invite you to enjoy our Ugandan vanilla."
Arne lived in Uganda between 2007 and 2014: he works there as a freelance journalist for various news media and wrote a book about the recent history of Uganda in 2020. “When I lived there, I increasingly realized that African countries are not waiting for benefactors from all kinds of aid organizations. What they want is to do business in a fair and equal way. I think that vanilla cultivation is a good opportunity for many farmers to earn a good living with relatively little land,” says Doornebal.
He has been involved with VanillaPoint since mid-2023.
Gijsbert has also been part of team VanillaPoint since 2023. “Godfrey and I have known each other for a while. I was very impressed by how he was working with VanillaPoint and his goal to strengthen the position of the local community. I used to work at a company where purchasing was really focused on the lowest possible price. That resulted in many different suppliers, long travel distances, delivery times and quality differences with additional challenges. You can wonder whether that is really sustainable. My goal is to have a positive impact on the world and I want to set a good example for my children.
We are all about regenerative agriculture and protecting nature. On our plantations, we grow vanilla in an environmentally friendly way, where the plant grows between other crops, such as (Matoke) bananas and coffee. This approach, also known as intercropping, ensures a resilient harvest and makes farmers less dependent on a single crop. This not only provides economic stability, but also gives the local flora and fauna space to flourish. The vanilla orchid grows in its natural environment, sheltered under banana trees that provide the necessary shade and nutrition.
Thanks to Uganda’s tropical climate and carefully planned planting, we can rely on a natural moisture-retaining system. Local trees absorb rainwater and act as buffers, releasing the stored moisture to the environment during droughts. Even the plantation’s leaf litter is composted and used as natural fertilizer. In this way, we are building a self-sufficient ecosystem that enriches the soil and makes chemicals, pesticides or fertilizers redundant.
This way of working, which respects biodiversity and the health of the earth, is what drives us. It is not only sustainable – it is our pride and our mission.
By charging fair prices and growing various crops regeneratively, the family is not dependent on vanilla cultivation. This means they are not forced to harvest early, which gives the vanilla pods time to ripen on the orchid for as long as possible. The fermentation process is crucial, because it is during this process that the vanillin, the substance that determines the flavor, fully develops. The cooking, sweating and drying of the pods is a delicate process that requires patience, so that the right moisture and vanillin content is achieved. Only the highest quality vanilla pods can start to crystallize on their own over time, and when we see this, we know we have reached the optimum.
The vanilla we grow is of the planifolia type, the same type that grows in Madagascar. The climate and the regenerative cultivation method (as opposed to mass production plantations with monoculture) determine the flavor and intensity of the vanilla pod. Laboratory tests show that the vanillin content of our Ugandan vanilla is about 20% higher than that of other vanilla. In short, you need less of our vanilla to achieve the same intense flavor.
Our goal is of course to bring high-quality vanilla to the Netherlands and Belgium. But for us, the social and ecological impact is at least as important. We hope to make the global vanilla industry more sustainable step by step with our approach.
The biggest challenges for vanilla farmers lie in the fluctuations of the market price. Middlemen and large companies have a lot of influence on determining the price. Sometimes entire harvests are bought up at once, which helps the farmers in the short term, but at the same time ensures that the vanilla is sold below cost price. This puts pressure on many farmers, which ultimately reduces the supply and increases the price again. After all, vanilla is a product with a long shelf life, and middlemen speculate on the volatility of this price. Unfortunately, the farmer often draws the short straw, and we are trying to change that.
We therefore choose to always pay the workers on the family plantation and the farmers we work with a more than fair price—a price that in many cases is double, or even triple, the current market price. By investing in long-term relationships with the local community, we can ensure consistent quality and maintain a reliable, fresh supply.
The end user, our customer, ultimately determines our raison d'être. In order to build a long-term relationship, it is essential that we ensure good and stable sales prices. Because our chain is as short as possible, we can control the quality and prices ourselves. We do not participate in the enormous price fluctuations that determine the market. This means that we are not the cheapest, certainly not the most expensive, but we are the most sustainable supplier.
From Farm 2 Fork.
