Uganda

Formerly known as Rwenzori Highlands Tea Company, Finlays in Uganda has grown rapidly to become Uganda’s largest single producer of black tea, responsible for over a quarter of the country’s tea exports.

Our Locations

We produce in excess of 10 million kilos of made tea every year from the five separate locations of Bugambe, Muzizi, Kiko, Mwenge and Ankole. We now have over 3,600 hectares of tea spread along the Rwenzori mountain range, an area that offers the ideal climate and soil conditions for tea production.

A commitment to quality, the welfare of our employees and responsible business ethics give us a prominent position in the highly competitive world tea market.

Our Products and Standards

Quality is paramount. To produce a consistent, high quality tea, we believe in quality control at every stage of the production process.

On the estates we are investing in new areas of clonal tea guaranteed to improve the quality of the end product. Our tea nurseries are continuously monitored and nurtured until the young plants are ready for planting out. Tasting is an intrinsic part of our tea production process: our highly experienced tasters examine each sample for appearance, infusion and liquor. All results are recorded and reviewed.

Our packaging is also a crucial part of the process and once the leaf has been plucked, the withering process is carefully controlled and the leaf moisture content checked hourly. All our factories use the modern Cut Tea Curl (CTC) method of breaking down the leaf – a method best suited to produce a tastier cup of tea. Our modern production lines are clean and hygienic and the product is continuously sampled to ensure consistency. State-of-the-art fluid bed dryers complete the black tea production before it is sorted into the various grades. We use foil lined air-tight sacks to ensure air moisture cannot compromise the freshness, flavour and aroma of the tea.

With all these quality control systems in place, Finlays in Uganda attained ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 accreditations.

Our People

We understand that the quality of our product is totally dependent on the welfare and morale of our employees. Since our inception we have invested heavily in the housing, training and the health and safety of our entire workforce.

Each of our estates provides low-cost housing for employees and their families. The estates provide clinics that offer free health care, maternity facilities and the screening and treatment for common diseases such as malaria. We adopted ILO codes of practice on HIV/AIDS for our employees and we also offer assistance to the neighbouring communities.

At each factory, a strict health and safety code is followed and all employees sign a safety contract. Machinery is carefully guarded and employees must wear the correct safety equipment at all times.

We place great emphasis on training and annually recruit both agricultural and engineering university graduates who follow a formal two year training programme. We are proud of our local reputation as good employers and have worked closely with the regulatory authorities over all issues relating to employees welfare.  

Our Environment

The preservation of our environment is crucial to the future and is therefore a core factor in our local business strategy. The tea estates are all situated around large areas of indigenous equatorial forest that provides habitats for a variety of species of flora and fauna. We have responsibly planted Eucalyptus grandis at all our estates which is then used for fuel wood. Consequently the company is now virtually self sufficient in this area.

By adhering to and investing in these values we have built the foundations to become one of East Africa’s leading tea producers.