Uganda: Coffee Firm To Use Blockchain in Supply Chain

By Prashant Jha

A Ugandan firm dealing in coffee, known as the Carico Café Connoisseur, has decided to make use of the blockchain technology to start tracking the coffee it sells by ensuring traceability in the supply chain. The brand new blockchain-based platform will provide a distributed database stored across several computer systems in sync.

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The technology solution deployed will be used to trace, monitor and trace the records of the coffee inventory right from when it is brought to the collection centres from the farms. Afterwards, the warehousing aspect, the stage where it is inspected by regulatory personnel and finally, shipping, will all be tracked through the blockchain-powered database.

Mwambu Wanendeya, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Carico Café Connoisseur, said that the key reason behind them using this technology was to allow the consumer to be deeply associated with how the product is brought to him or her.

The technology makes interaction with consumer a breeze by communicating in exact terms what is happening with the coffee as it moves forward in the supply chain.

In this manner, a higher linkage may be ensured between the farmer and the final consumer.

The CEO further opined that it was incredibly important to be able to trace the produce because today’s consumers are becoming increasingly interested in knowing about the origin story and source of each and everything they consume personally.

Having a distributed ledger in place with blockchain makes sure the company has different kinds of information available at the tip of their fingers, ranging from the nature of coffee bean, the year of harvest and the coffee’s provenance.

The coffee farmers are also expected to benefit substantially from this tech support as knowing the origin or provenance frequently encourages customers so that they are ready to pay a higher price for the product. Having a connection with the origin that can be factually established adds great value to the business, benefitting farmers.

The CEO commented:

“Traceability is important because people are increasingly concerned that … farmers get rewarded for their work.”

He added:

“Consumers are willing to pay more if they can know where exactly the coffee is coming from.”