The Flower of Uganda Has Arrived

Casa Costa Foundation was born from hospitality. From the idea that welcoming people creates relationships, and that relationships generate the possibility of real change that multiplies across territories, building lasting skills.

This is our model. It's what we've been testing for 15 years in Uganda, and what we're bringing to Italy today.

The story of Ugandan vanilla is the perfect example of how all this takes concrete form.

When it all began…

In 2011, we started working with Associazione Gruppi Insieme si può in Central Uganda, in the Mukono area. Together, we supported about thirty small-scale farmers, excluded from the value chain, in vanilla cultivation under the coordination of the Ssesibwa demonstration farm. In the best years, they produced 70 kg. Very little when you consider that Uganda is one of the world's main vanilla producers, alongside Madagascar and other countries.

But it was the beginning of something that already contained the three pillars of our work: soil, soul, society.

Soil – The land and its (denied) dignity

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world after saffron. In 2023, a kilogram sold for an average of $250. In Uganda, it's been a strategic national crop since 2018.

Yet those who cultivate it live in poverty.

The problem isn't the land. The problem is that farmers sell without knowing what their product is worth. The only laboratories for quality analysis belong to the buying companies. A broker arrives, tells you "your vanilla is worth this," and you have no tools to verify. You have no alternatives, because you need to secure an income and can't risk your harvest deteriorating.

When knowledge of the land doesn't belong to those who work it, the land cannot generate dignity.

Soul – The culture that creates more for everyone

70% of vanilla growers in Uganda are women. They're the ones managing the family's economic resources. They're the ones deciding whether to send children to school, buy medicine, improve the house.

When you support these women's training, you're not doing charity. You're investing in skills that multiply. A trained woman trains other women. A cooperative that can read vanilla quality analyses teaches other cooperatives. Local knowledge that becomes refined becomes cultural heritage.

It's the same principle we apply in our work with communities in Alto Adige and Val d'Orcia: when skills circulate, they strengthen and create identity and widespread benefit.

Society – The rules of the game

Associazione Gruppi Insieme si può, our partner for 15 years, has built the VANI-COOPS Project (Promotion of vanilla growers' rights and skills in Uganda), funded in 2025 by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation – AICS.

We support and are part of this project because it represents exactly the model we believe in: changing the rules of an unjust supply chain through three concrete actions.

First: setting up the first independent laboratory for vanilla analysis at Makerere University in Kampala. The first laboratory in Uganda that doesn't belong to buying companies. Now cooperatives can know – before selling – what their vanilla is really worth. They can say "no" to an unfair price. This is contractual dignity.

Second: activating training programs for 2,845 growers – 70% women and youth. Not generic training. Training on good agricultural practices, post-harvest techniques, quality control, environmental sustainability. And training on labor rights, together with the International Labor Organization, to combat child labor in the supply chain.

Third: launching research with Makerere University on new intercropping practices, mixed cultivation that allows farmers to diversify. If vanilla prices crash, they need alternatives. They need to be able to grow other crops that guarantee stable income.

The VANI-COOPS project will last 36 months and reach over 22,000 beneficiaries in districts of central-southern Uganda with high vanilla cultivation potential. Among the grower cooperatives involved will be the Ssesibwa Cooperative, born years ago with our support as a demonstration farm. Associazione Gruppi Insieme si può coordinates in the field. We as Casa Costa Foundation contribute resources, visibility, and our network, starting with our collaboration with PETER'S TeaHouse Pompadour, to bring this vanilla to the Italian and European premium market, with a high-level event that fosters encounters between Ugandan producers and vanilla users in our territory and Italy in general, within a context of sustainability and social responsibility.

The model: from soil to cup

What's being built in Uganda is a transparent supply chain model.

Verified skills. Quality certified by independent laboratories. Fair price based on objective data. Conscious consumers who know what they're buying and why.

Two days ago, "Il fiore dell'Uganda" was launched – the new black tea with vanilla from PETER'S TeaHouse Pompadour, made with vanilla from these cooperatives.

It's a tea that weaves the delicate, sweet taste of vanilla with the intensity of black tea. An enveloping blend, born from the encounter between the strength of tea and the spiced sweetness of Ugandan vanilla.

You'll find it for sale in our four Houses – Hotel La Perla and Berghotel Ladinia in Corvara, Hotel La Posta in Bagno Vignoni, Alpine Hotel Gran Fodà in San Vigilio di Marebbe – and you can purchase it online. It's concrete proof that this model works. It works in Uganda. And it can work wherever there's the will to build supply chains where excellence is born from caring for the land and the people who inhabit it.

This is the kind of economy we want to support: an economy that regenerates, creates authentic connections, and multiplies value for everyone's benefit. Not charity, but exchange. Not assistance, but concrete skills.

Why we do this

Casa Costa Foundation was born in 2007 by the will of Michil Costa. Today we focus our projects mainly in Italy – Alto Adige and Tuscany – but Ugandan vanilla remains. It remains because it's the perfect prototype of what we want to do here too. It remains because it demonstrates that when universities, cooperatives, nonprofits, businesses, and foundations work together, you can change the rules of the game.

It remains because it reminds us that hospitality isn't just welcome. It's relationship. It's exchange. It's the possibility of using our resources – skills, networks, visibility – to create lasting value.

And today…

Those 70 kg of vanilla from fifteen years ago are becoming organized cooperatives, trained growers, a laboratory serving thousands of people. And already today they've become a tea you can taste, knowing there's a story of justice behind it.

In the coming months, we'll tell you how we're applying this model in Alto Adige and Tuscany. We'll show you the territorial projects, the people, the supply chains we're building.

Meanwhile, taste a black vanilla tea that tastes like the future. And if you want to know more, come visit us in one of our Houses. We have other stories to tell you.