Coffee joins the blockchain revolution with the Onda Origins project launched by brothers Paul and Scott Tupper. In reality, it is not the first time that someone has proposed to trade coffee using the blockchain, but this time it is out of solidarity.
Unlike IBM’s project, Onda Origins wants to bring coffee to the blockchain to provide certainty about the quality of production also from an environmental and social point of view, with a level of guarantee higher than the normal chains of fairtrade products.
The problem of many productions of consumer goods is that the world distribution system does not reward quality, it depresses the economic yield for small quality farmers in favour of intermediaries and large companies, all to the detriment of the environmental and social growth of the planet.
Coffee by Ivonne Herrera
One of the coffees placed on the Onda Origins blockchain is that of Ivonne Herrera, which grows outside Guatemala City, in one of the poorest countries in Central America.
The high-quality coffee is normally sold on the international market and financed by futures in standard lots, where it is mixed with others and not rewarded for personal commitment.
Thanks to the blockchain, however, Onda Origins wants to track the production of coffee, allowing consumers to follow the product through all the individual steps on the market, from the producer and the roasting company to the final consumer.
The spread of these blockchain based tracking systems will lead to a better solution for all stakeholders, in fact:
- Producers will be able to recognize the superiority of the product and the methods of cultivation, allowing also for a better remuneration of the employee work;
- The intermediaries will not be deceived about the quality of the product itself;
- The roaster companies will know the specific qualities of each batch;
- The consumers will obtain excellent coffee, consistent with their tastes, and that also performs the social functions they consider important.
Onda Origins will use Yave.io’s blockchain, nicknamed the coffee blockchain, created with Oxford University as a partner.
The underlying blockchain tracking system is the Yave.io platform, where operators, namely roasting companies and farmers, can currently sign up to take part in the future sales system.
The platform’s – based on the IBM Hyperledger – launch has been announced for the next few months.
