Blockchain traceability model in the coffee industry

Abstract

As one of the most popular drinks in the world, coffee has limitations in its complex and opaque supply chain. Consumers have difficulty verifying coffee quality according to the price they pay. However, innovative technologies such as blockchain emerge with the potential to support the coffee supply chain to be more transparent and traceable. Blockchain technology is a distributed database that allows for secure, transparent, and tamper-proof record-keeping, which makes it an ideal tool for tracking the movement of coffee beans throughout the supply chain, from farmers to roasters to retailers. Each step in the coffee supply chain could be logged and tracked using blockchain, thus supporting greater transparency. Traceability would make it easier to identify and track any issues or irregularities in the supply chain. We propose a model to transform a coffee industry supply chain business process into a blockchainable workflow. In addition, an application was developed to allow each stakeholder in the supply chain to contribute to the data collection and monitor the status of each coffee batch. The application prototype was implemented and evaluated in one of the coffee industries in Indonesia. This research will benefit farmers in getting fair prices and end-consumers getting quality assurance.