Our Story
Between us, we personally oversee every step, from hand-picking beans off the vines, through 5 – 6 months of curing, to packaging the finest-flavoured gourmet vanilla pods in the U.K. From delicate vine to dessert spoon, our vanilla is handled carefully by us right along its journey to you.
Ours is a family business throughout, steeped in the traditional methods required to bring out the best flavours in our beans, and with a deep understanding of the quality standards our customers expect. With the large volumes of vanilla that we handle in Uganda, we are sure to always have a reliable supply of just the best gourmet vanilla pods for sale through Kiddu.
Our Mission
Our vision has always been for Ugandan vanilla to become the premium brand that it deserves to be. We have already unlocked the potential of some of the most skilled farmers in the world, and in tandem with the perfect climate, we have produced arguably the best quality cured vanilla on the market.
We truly believe in our native country, and we are striving to propel the whole Ugandan vanilla sector into the consumer consciousness. We are doing this by giving our farmers the necessary resources to demonstrate their value consistently, and by conveying a clear professional approach through our focussed supply chain.
At heart we have the fire of entrepreneurialism burning strong. Our next exciting goal is to implement an organic certification programme across our widely dispersed farmers, giving further assurance on our already robust traceability of vanilla beans sourced from farmers using best practice organic techniques.
Our Passion – The Perfect Cure
The fine art of vanilla curing involves many complicated steps over a testing 6 month cycle. Although we like to see ourselves as taking a scientific approach to all our processes, especially one of constant feedback and improvement, achieving the perfect cure is very much an art at the end of the day. It requires years of experience, and it has taken us incredible dedication to become master curers, which is why we have a lot in common with our farmers who are so committed to their delicate crops.
In Western Uganda we have a purpose-built facility which allows us to specialise in premium vanilla production. We have never seen vanilla as simply a commodity – with a complex mixture of over 200 flavour components (usually only one or two for artificial vanilla!) it has to be treated with the utmost respect. Even for our larger international clients, where an array of different grades / precise moisture levels are demanded, along with superior hygiene protocols, the layout of our facility supports each and every bean’s path to locking in the maximum flavour.
For more information on the curing process, please follow this link to the website of our Ugandan operation.
Ultimately, the quality of our vanilla depends on the skills of our people.