Weight left1 kg of cherry
Travelled0 km
ValueNot priced
Of 1 kg of dried cherry, what is left1,000 g
Route shownOther routes
Index / Supply Chains / Coffee
Uganda is landlocked, and Italy is its biggest coffee customer. This is the route a robusta bean takes from a smallholding near Masaka, overland to the Kenyan coast, through the Red Sea and Suez, into a cup on the Adriatic.
Summary
1 kg of dried cherry makes about 45 to 65 espressos
Price
1 kg of green coffee roasts to about 800 to 850 g, enough for about 118 espressos of 7 g at €1.44 Calculated. Shilling prices are converted at UGX 3,925 per dollar. Bars are roughly to scale. The cost of the trip, the roasting and the bar itself sit between the last 2 rows and are not published.
Money
If the whole 7 g dose were Ugandan robusta, the farmer’s share is about 2 US cents of a €1.44 espresso, under 2% Calculated. Most Italian espresso is a blend, so a real cup holds less Ugandan coffee than this.
Deforestation rule
From 30 December 2026, large and medium companies selling coffee in the EU must prove it was not grown on land deforested after 31 December 2020, with the location of every plot it came from. Small companies follow on 30 June 2027. For Uganda that means tracing beans from each smallholding through hulleries and exporters to every shipment. Uganda has registered about 1.7 million coffee farmers in a national database to meet it.
Paperwork
| Document | Issued by | When | What it proves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farmer registration | Uganda’s national coffee farmer database | Before sale | Who grew the coffee, and where |
| Coffee export licence | Ministry of Agriculture, Uganda | Yearly | The company may export coffee |
| Registered sales contract | Ministry of Agriculture, Uganda | At sale | The deal, its price and its quantity are on record |
| Quality certificate | Ministry of Agriculture, after pre-shipment inspection | Before shipment | The grade matches what was sold |
| Certificate of origin | Authorised body in Uganda | Before shipment | The coffee was grown in Uganda |
| Phytosanitary certificate | Ministry of Agriculture, Uganda | Before shipment | The lot is free of regulated pests |
| Export declaration | Exporter, with Uganda Revenue Authority | In Kampala | The goods have left Uganda legally |
| Transit under the single customs territory | Uganda and Kenya customs, with an electronic cargo seal | Kampala to Mombasa | The truck crosses Kenya without being cleared again |
| Bill of lading | Shipping line | On loading at Mombasa | The coffee is on board; whoever holds the original can claim it |
| Import declaration | Importer, with Italian customs | In Trieste | Duty (0% on green coffee) and VAT assessed |
| Due diligence statement | Importer, in the EU system | From 30 December 2026 | The coffee is traced to its plots and is deforestation-free |
Risk
| Where | Risk | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Farm | Price | The export price follows the London robusta market. In June 2026 Uganda’s coffee exports were worth 37.4% less than a year earlier, on 24.2% lower volume |
| Farm | Tracing | A lot that cannot be traced to registered plots cannot be sold into the EU after 30 December 2026 |
| Road | Delay | The Kenyan leg averaged 85 hours to Malaba in mid-2025, up from 77 a year earlier |
| Sea | The Red Sea | Container traffic through Suez was just over half of pre-crisis levels in October 2026. If the route closes again, ships go round the Cape: about 9,380 nm instead of 4,290 |
Carbon
Published studies put green coffee at 0.38 to 15.33 kg CO₂ equivalent per kg, depending on the country, the farming and how much of the chain is counted. No study of this route was found.
Gaps
Sources