Photo courtesy Yave Blockchain Platform
Blockchain Coffee Auction
Growers connect with buyers via blockchain ledger
Guatemalan Coffees and the Producer & Roaster Forum will host the world’s first blockchain coffee auction May 24, 2019.
The auction will be conducted online using the Yave Blockchain Platform. The Seattle-based company uses blockchain technology to verify equitable coffee purchasing from the farm to the cup.
Farmers will enjoy faster payment, new levels of traceability, and market access never before possible according to Yave.
Coffee is moving towards decommodification according to Yave which was the first company to fully trace a coffee (Seattle’s Onda Origins) from farmer to cup using a blockchain ledger.
Founder Scott Tupper said that in May, “we’re getting the industry in the same room to discuss what the future of coffee looks like, and then we’re going to go ahead and build that future.”
“The auction is recommended for early-adopter roasters who want to stand out from their competitors and have confidence in their supply chain,” according to the company. “Together we’ll bridge the digital/physical traceability chasm on a collective, and sales-driven basis. It’d great to be able to unite over the universal languages of quality and accountability,” said Tupper.
Producers from every growing region in Guatemala are invited to submit a lot of coffee free of charge. The final 20 lots will be selected following multiple rounds of cupping with national and international Q-grader certified judges.
The auction will conclude the Producer & Roaster Forum, which takes place at Anacafe headquarters in Guatemala City May 23 -24, 2019. Alejandro Molina, Anacafe’s market access and sustainability specialist, said that blockchain “not only will it improve transparency but more importantly, radically change how a coffee producer is able to receive a better and quicker return on their investment, their crop.”
“We see smallholder farmers as the biggest winners by being able to get their product to market quicker,” he said.
The forum helps educate stakeholders, build business relationships, and provide discourse on the future of coffee. The event is expected to draw 150 producers and 50 international guests, including numerous roasters.
Blockchain benefits
Direct trade and relationship coffees have helped connect producers and roasters, but most farmers remain excluded.
Yave’s platform enables equitable price discovery on an online marketplace. It removes intermediates from the commodity/futures market and enables more transparent business between stakeholders in the supply chain.
The platform brings verifiable trade relationships to roasters and producers, regardless of geography, language, and scale. Blockchain technology allows secure, clear documentation and end-to-end record keeping. It establishes an easy and accessible method of trade and allows more equitable, quality-based pricing.
According to Yave, producers enter their coffee’s attributes as the initial block in a decentralized, locked ledger that keeps track of each subsequent transaction and transfer of ownership along the supply chain. Aggregators, exporters, importers, roasters, and retailers register their actions as a new ledger entry. The result is network-verified trade and data that can be trusted.
The platform connects sellers and buyers around the world on an ongoing basis. Business transactions are in real time. Roasters and producers are closer than ever before, no matter where they are located, according to Yave. Importers, exporters, and buyers do business more efficiently thanks to standardization of contracts, secure, and reliable data collection, and equitable data distribution.
The digital status of the coffee being traded is updated with each transaction, providing stakeholders with real-time insight into their supply chain and building trust among partners. Yave’s blockchain platform streamlines the sales process through discrete data sharing across currently disparate silos.
Yave also provides upstream and downstream intelligence about supplier and customer trends. Rather than a series of independent sales transactions, all transactions are part a single product lifecycle. This makes it straightforward to attach trade documentation, manage payments, handle freight, and perform business intelligence reporting, according to the company.
— Dan Bolton