A Ugandan company is using blockchain, to certify shipments of coffee.
The technology was employed to meet growing demand from consumers who want more information about where products have come from.
The blockchain certification means consumers can trace the coffee’s journey by using their smartphones to scan the product’s QR codes or via the certification site provenance.org.
Every step of the beans’ journey – from when farmers drop them off at collection centres to warehousing, inspection by regulators and shipping – is recorded.
The company, Carico Café Connoisseur, says the move could help to boost farmers’ incomes, as consumers are usually prepared to pay more for goods that can been traced back to their origins.
Blockchain, the technology which is behind virtual currency; Bitcoin works by providing a shared record of data held by a network of individual computers rather than a single party.
Its supporters say this makes it hard to tamper with, and makes it a secure way to track goods along the supply chain
According to the International Coffee Organisation, Uganda is Africa’s largest coffee exporter followed by Ethiopia and has some of the world’s highest quality beans. It predominantly cultivates the robusta variety, but also has extensive fields of arabica trees.
The country however exports nearly all of its beans in raw form owing to limited domestic processing capacity