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(Bloomberg) Starbucks Corp. fans can now track their coffee. And also the farmers, who will know for the first time where their beans end up.
We have been able to track every coffee we buy from every farm for almost two decades.
Michelle Burns, Senior Vice President, Global Coffee, Tea and Cocoa
Starbucks Corp.
Michelle Burns, Starbucks Senior Vice President of Global Coffee, Tea and Cocoa
Starting Tuesday, customers purchasing coffee at Starbucks stores in the U.S. will be able to use a code on the bags to find out where their beans came from, where they were roasted, and even get tips from baristas on brewing, Michelle said. Burns, director of the company. world vice president of coffee, tea and cocoa. Farmers will be given a reverse code so they can finally track their produce.
The new tool, powered by Microsoft Corp., uses blockchain technology and will allow Starbucks to share with its customers the traceability data that the world’s largest coffee shop chain has been collecting for more than a decade. It will also help the company attract young, sustainable-minded consumers, many of whom have been flocking to small craft shops where coffee is roasted in the back of the store.
“We have been able to track every coffee we buy from every farm for almost two decades,” Burns said in an interview before the launch. “That gave us the foundation to now build an easy-to-use, consumer-driven tool that certainly brings that confidence and assurance to our customers that we know where all of our coffee comes from.”
Millennial consumers are increasingly interested in knowing where their food comes from, how it was grown, and whether it was produced in a sustainable and ethical way. That is forcing some of the world’s largest food companies and produce traders to be more transparent in their supply chains. And for that, they are turning to technology.
Blockchain initiative
Last year, some coffee roasters, including JM Smucker Co. and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, joined a blockchain initiative, developed in partnership with International Business Machines Corp. Farmer Connect, a startup backed by Swiss coffee merchant Sucafina SA, is helping companies track the origin of the grains they buy and sell, as well as prices throughout the supply chain.
Tracking the coffee down to the farmer level has its own challenges. Beans from various farms can be mixed throughout the supply chain. For Starbucks, that means some bags, like those containing mixes, will be traced down to the country level. Others will be traced back to the region where the beans were grown, the community that delivered at a certain wash station, or even to the farmer himself, in the case of single-origin packages.
“We dig as deep as we can,” he said, adding that Starbucks can even track the beans it buys from merchants, as they require receipts for every transaction.
Farmers will also have access to the tool. And they don’t need a smartphone or a camera for that. The traceability website can be accessed from any laptop or desktop and the code can also be entered manually. That will allow growers to understand where their beans end up, whether they own a sophisticated farm in Brazil’s top producer, or are small farmers in African nations like Ethiopia or Rwanda.
“What they told us is they didn’t know where their coffee was going, what blend it was going to,” Burns said.
The tool is not yet available for Starbucks bags bought outside of stores or by the cup. When asked if the coffee chain operator had plans to expand that, Burns said, “We’re just getting started.”
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