Fake coffee to be filtered out with Acviss’ blockchain-based technology

Nescafe is synonymous with a morning coffee kick for consumers worldwide, which is why fake Nestle coffee discovered in German markets last year raised the alarm. For India, counterfeit products cause a dent of Rs 1 lakh crore in the local economy, creating an urge to flag fake products. Technology can play an important role in monitoring supply chains, to keep an eye on coffee beans and grains, right from their origin to warehouses and retail premises.

Brand protection and consumer engagement technology company Acviss Technologies has developed a ‘no internet’ blockchain-based traceability application for the Coffee Board of India. This app is designed to protect coffee production from counterfeiting. The Coffee Board of India has been working with marginalized tribal coffee farmers to help them improve farm productivity and quality. With the introduction of this anti-counterfeiting technology, farmers have been able to benefit from higher incomes in their farm produce.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is immutable and completely decentralized using cryptographic hashing that makes it difficult to tamper with. Using this, Acviss Technologies developed a special label for the Coffee Board of India. This label was then applied to the coffee packets to digitize the physical bags. This bag, when moved from one stage to another, records every single transaction that occurred throughout the supply chain. This whole development can then be viewed on a smartphone where the consumer gets a complete view of the product details in the marketplace.

In recent years, the demand for differentiated coffee with traceability features has increased worldwide, and the differentiated coffee that can be traced back to the source can help achieve a premium for these coffee farmers. Commenting on this, Vikas Jain, Founder, Acviss Technologies said, “It has been a pleasure to create a solution for Coffee Board of India, we have not only built something innovative but we have also tried to make it accessible and useful for the common man, the app we have made is very simple and does not require Wifi for farmers to scan. It is a very simple and user-friendly app made primarily for the benefit of farmers”

Acviss Tech’s app also helps farmers generate stable income and protects them from any collateral damage through automated payments, insurance and financing, as there is no middleman involved. For the end users, this app also helps consumers by providing authenticated certifications that ensure that the purchased product is safe for consumption.

Talking about this implementation, Coffee Board of India officials said, “We have worked with Acviss to develop a blockchain solution that has been implemented in Karnataka and we have been very happy with the outcome. With this solution, farmers have been able to reap benefits . Their revenue has increased by around 43 percent because of this traceability app.”

With this application, coffee procured by these tribal farmers can now be traced from producer to consumer. Coffee parameters such as moisture, weight, type and yield captured at source farms are mentioned. Along with this, certification data is also available for each sample collected. To build consumer trust, this app also displays the farm locations and farmer data.

Coffee has become an increasingly common target for food fraudsters, with low-quality ground coffee beans adulterated with filler ingredients such as corn, barley, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, acai seeds, brown sugar or starch syrup. One of the main drivers has been a reduction in coffee bean production due to poor harvests at some key producers.