Lorinda Web Design

It’s always exciting to launch a website, but Lorinda Web Design’s latest project is an eCommerce site with a worthy cause. The owners of www.EquatorialCoffee.com are passionate about educating Ugandan Coffee Farmers about Fair Trade and Organic Coffee Farming methods.

The founders of Equatorial Coffee and Pearl Commodities, Rashid Mbabali and Benjamin Kulubya, are from Uganda. Rashid and Benjamin know first hand about the economical and physical hardships that coffee farmers face. They started out as a local commodities company in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, servicing the East African region. In 2005, they entered the U.S. market and are now based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Equatorial Coffee’s Mission in Uganda

• Improve Organic coffee bean farming methods.
• Help small scale coffee farmers increase their yield by introducing Robusta washing to rural areas and teaching better organic coffee farming method.
• Aims to create a unique relationship between the local coffee farmers and coffee drinkers in North America. This will help increase farmers’ farm-gate prices.

Benjamin’s Commitment to Organic Coffee
Benjamin has been instrumental in going down to the villages in Uganda to organize coffee farmers into co-ops in order to garner better prices for their coffee. He has helped introduce innovative and updated farming practices as well as convince farmers to keep their crops organic, which has helped Ugandan farmers get better quality coffee that meets world standards and garners better prices.

Benjamin has a long career as an entrepreneur and a marketing executive. Benjamin is also a coffee connoisseur and enjoys the Mchanganyiko blend. With his vast experience in coffee testing, he helped formulate the recipe which finally became this blend of 80/20 Ugandan coffee and world coffees.

Rashid’s Commitment to Fair Trade Coffee
One reason Rashid is so passionate about the fair trade coffee mission is to keep his family’s coffee farming legacy alive. Rashid’s great grandfather was a coffee farmer. The family coffee farming business was later passed down to Rashid’s grandfather, who in turn passed it down to Rashid’s father who decided he was going to become a coffee broker and began buying coffee from all the different regions of Uganda. Unfortunately, many coffee farmers stop farming because the money they get for the crops is simply not enough to sustain their livelihoods. Rashid believes that fair trade coffee is crucial to the survival of all small scale farmers around the world, including his own family members.

Equatorial Coffee not only offers some of the world’s most exotics coffees, but they are committed to giving back to the local community, through their coffee fundraiser program. For each bag sold, Equatorial Coffee will donate 30% of the proceeds to your charity or organization.

Lorinda Web Design is honored to be a part of such a worthy cause. Developing websites just doesn’t get any better than this!

OK, I’ve done what I always said I wouldn’t do - blog! I hate that word, it annoys me, but what else am I supposed to do? I eat, sleep, and breathe SEO, and well, it’s kind of hard to practice what I preach without blogging (Ugh! I hate that word even more!). So hopefully now, I can share what I’ve learned about search engine optimization and perhaps contribute something useful to this ever elusive specialty.

Peace,
Lorinda