The rise of the digital era has ushered in a huge range of opportunities for the coffee industry, not least the possibility to trace coffees from origin to final consumer. While this has significant benefits, the process of collecting and sharing data is complex and can be inefficient if not done well. Traceability tools can be a solution, yet picking one and, more importantly, choosing the right one for a specific business is a gargantuan task that, when done without guidance, can costs huge amounts of money and time. In this article, we highlight five tools that can serve as a starting point.

Despite the extensive geographical coverage of broadband internet, a staggering 3 billion people do not use internet services due to challenges ranging from high cost of data to gaps in digital skills. This creates a significant problem for farmers, who are unable to access vital information for their businesses. So, how do we bridge the gap between uneven internet usage and the availability of information? In a world where high-tech solutions often grab the spotlight, the significance of 'low-tech' tools in agriculture stands as a testament to innovation meeting necessity.

Quality assessment in the coffee industry has long been a challenging endeavor, with defining standards across the supply chain proving to be a complex task. Artificial Intelligence stands as a transformative force with global implications across diverse industries, offering solutions that revolutionize processes and enhance efficiency. In the coffee industry, AI emerges as a game-changer, promising to enhance not only the efficiency of grading processes but also the overall coffee quality of the final product. 

The coffee industry has long been plagued by a pricing transparency problem. Traditionally there has been information asymmetry across the coffee supply chain, creating an uneven playing field for the different stakeholders, most often putting farmers in an unsustainable price-taking position. One way to tackle this is by leveraging technology-based solutions that can provide specific information to offer enhanced pricing transparency. Coffee producers need an engine, not cogs. However, it is important to note that a single solution will not create a viable coffee business. It takes a holistic approach – starting with improving the negotiating position of coffee producers.

As roasting businesses expand, they must optimize their operations. Streamlined processes, scalable technology, and talent development are pivotal in ensuring business growth without sacrificing quality or exhausting resources. One of the key areas that draw most of a roasting business owner’s time is roasting itself, especially when you have started with a small-capacity machine. Suddenly you can find yourself roasting 8 hours a day, which leaves no time for other activities like marketing, sales, and customer service. In tackling the automation part of this challenge, here are three software systems that roasting businesses may find useful.

Genotyping is an important tool for improving traits in plants, as it helps scientists identify and validate links between a plant’s DNA to certain characteristics. This is particularly relevant in field trials and nurseries, as it allows for the selection of seedlings with specific attributes, such as resistance to diseases. While this type of technology has become increasingly common in many forms of agriculture, the coffee sector has fallen behind. One of the institutions working on developing genetic traceability tools for coffee is World Coffee Research (WCR), which seeks to bring higher quality plants to coffee farmers around the world and ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector.

Buying coffee internationally is fraught with complexities, risks and inefficiencies at every stage of the supply chain. Meanwhile, the growth of e-commerce has exponentially increased retail businesses' reach via marketplaces that facilitate business from the first point of sale to its final delivery. These same digital tools can greatly enhance the participation in international coffee trading at all levels of the coffee supply chain by connecting everyone in one centralized place. New York-based value chain management platform CropConex has entered this space by launching its own digital end-to-end marketplace.

Following the recent approval of the European Union Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) by the European Council on May 19th, the coffee industry is now faced with the imperative of adopting digital tools to ensure compliance with this new regulatory framework. In this article, we present a small selection of examples among the wide range of tools catering to diverse user needs and operating contexts to demonstrate the possibilities in this context.

Nowadays, customers look more than ever for convenience, speed and personalization when interacting with coffee brands. Integrating technology is often the go-to solution for those seeking flexibility and innovation. Addressing the need for cost-effective, highly customizable digital solutions for small coffee brands, coffee packaging company Savor Brands has launched Savor Live, a subscription-based tool created with the mission of delivering technology to lift up specialty coffee roasters and cafés by providing them with their own branded mobile app.

Coffee retailers are increasingly relying on information technology solutions to better serve their customers, including mobile ordering and payments, handheld Point of Sale Systems devices, and digital menus accessed through QR codes. What has been missing until recently is technology for coffee retailers to better manage quality and consistency, improve communications between locations, report on equipment usage, and standard operating procedures. With baristas, retailer managers, and wholesale roasters in mind, Cropster's new tool promises to improve workflow and operations.

When they first appeared in 1994, QR codes were designed as an improved version of a barcode and were never supposed to be used beyond the manufacturing process. However, they have become ubiquitous since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, offering brands an easy, convenient and dynamic way to connect with consumers on a deeper level. But in a world where everything seems to already be a click away, are QR codes actually being scanned by coffee drinkers?

A year after the EU backed the COP26 Glasgow Climate Conference pledge to stop deforestation and land degradation, the European Commission has taken the commitment to forest conservation a step farther with the adoption of a specific deforestation-free products regulation. While this agreement is key for conservation and can potentially have significant social and economic benefits for communities whose livelihoods depend on forest ecosystems, it presents challenges for companies of all sizes, in particular when it comes to addressing the new requirements regarding data collection.

Coffee tasting started as an activity performed for trading and commercial purposes, but it has become a common practice among coffee enthusiasts as well. Like many other processes in the coffee industry, quality control activities have always been painstakingly recorded using paper assessment forms. However, as online solutions permeate our daily lives in the pursue of efficiency, coffee cupping has also gone digital. Today, cuppers use web applications and mobile apps, allowing them to record more accurate data, collaborate with remote teams, share information with clients, and effectively use data to find insights or identify patterns to improve their operations.

Coffee logistics have never been simple. Getting coffee from the port of origin to consumer involves a huge array of moving parts that need to work like clockwork. The rise in popularity of specialty coffee has added challenges to the coffee supply chain. Instead of large shipments of single lot containers, logistics professionals handle specialty coffee with up to 30 different lots shipped in one container. All lots have to be identified, separated and stored individually, and then finally released bag by bag.

Despite the opportunities offered by digital technologies in agricultural production, there are still low levels of appropriation in the field. The variables that play a part in the appropriation or non-appropriation of technologies have been studied more successfully – they range from factors related to access and the expertise required, to technical factors such as usability, compatibility and the relevance of information provided. It is important, however, to consider the role played by psychological factors in the appropriation of digital technologies. Among those factors, resistance to change, perception of similarity or compatibility, and trust are particularly important.

Did you know that reducing deforestation is one of the most effective options for climate change mitigation? Coffee farms have the potential to reduce deforestation through shade trees but often depend on clearing them to create firewood or to plant more crops. How do we mitigate climate change while not losing sight of our producers' needs? Dutch impact tech startup Carble has come up with a powerful answer: the combination of satellite imagery and digital payments. Partnering with satellite solutions provider Satelligence, they help coffee companies estimate how much carbon is stored by the trees of specific coffee farms so that a premium can be paid to producers based on those calculations.

UK online retailer Coffee Friend is a good example of how to handle coffee logistics in a way that benefits both the company and the consumer. “We thought that the meaning of having a great coffee at home symbolizes not only the taste itself but also the feeling of how great it is to always have coffee next to you,” says Gediminas Maziliauskis, Head of Supply at Coffee Friend.

Following up the first webinar session of the three-part series The Logic of Coffee Logistics, the second part, held on June 2nd, explored concrete case studies and challenges to digitalized logistics. This session was moderated by Stuart Ritson from Osito Coffee, panelists Kenean Asefa Dukamo of Daye Bensa Coffee, Kume Chibsa of Afrovalley, and Maria Grajales Gomez of Col-Spirit. The series concluded with a session held on June 16th, that was focused on looking toward the future of coffee logistics. Together with moderator Amaris Gutierrez-Ray of Joe Coffee Company, the panelists Brianna Dickey of CropConex, Guillermo Grassi of edoxOnline, and Felipe Cam of Mercon Coffee Group shared their perspective.

The current logistics crisis is affecting supply chains in virtually every sector and part of the world – and the coffee industry is no exception. In a bid to offer some context and understand how – and if – technology and digitalization can help ease the pressure on coffee sector operations, Digital Coffee Future held on May 19th the first conversation of its three-part webinar series The Logic of Coffee Logistics: Overcoming the Logistic Challenges of the Coffee Supply Chain. During this introductory event, Colleen Walsh of Olam Specialty Coffee, Don Lawrence of Intelligentsia, and Aleksandrs Sidorecs of Cognizant shared their experiences with us.

For the past two years, supply chains have faced many challenges and coffee has not been the exception. The Covid-19 pandemic had a massive impact on consumption behavior around the world, which directly impacted the logistics sector. With the aim of mitigating the effect of these uncertain circumstances, coffee companies are looking for new ways to counteract these logistics challenges. Among the many alternatives being adopted, the use of digital technology has started proving that reinventing logistics is possible.

In an industry where transparency and sustainability are increasingly demanded – yet those terms are not uniformly defined – it is surprisingly difficult to figure out whether farmers are paid enough to cover the basics. With this in mind, Colombia-based coffee export company Azahar Coffee set out to develop a tool to inform socially conscious coffee buyers about the price point required for farmers to achieve different levels of income. After three years of manually collecting data, the company presented the inaugural version of their Sustainable Coffee Buyer’s Guide (SCBG) at the 2022 SCA Expo last month.

After climate change, the lack of generational replacement is most likely the biggest threat to coffee production on a global scale. Mirroring global geographic dynamics – and as a consequence of the economic hardships faced by millions of coffee producers – new generations choose to migrate from rural areas towards cities seeking job opportunities and better access to goods and services such as education. While Information and Communications Technologies alone may not be enough to change this, they can play an important role in changing the dynamics.

According to data published by the International Coffee Organization, coffee producers have seen their average income decline by up to 10% over the last few years, leaving thousands well below the poverty line. In Nicaragua, for example, the proportion of those living on less than US$1.90 per day has gone up by a chilling 50%. While this reality is in part direct reflection of the low and volatile prices that have plagued the industry since the late 1990s, it is far from the only factor involved in the hardships affecting coffee producers worldwide.

We talked with Ben Palmer, Head of Sales for the UK & Europe at Mercanta, about his company’s efforts to digitize their supply chain and enable the transition to evidence-based storytelling. Mercanta is a renowned actor in the Specialty Coffee industry due to their relationship-based sourcing model, which aims to build long-lasting partnerships with their producers and create an economically sustainable environment along its supply chain.

We had the pleasure to chat with Manfred Borer, Chief Executive Officer of Koltiva, a well-known integrated agriculture technology company in the cocoa sector that is starting to build a name in the coffee industry with its tailor-made software solutions and services. For eight years, Koltiva has worked tracing a variety of supply chains as cocoa, palm oil, seaweed, and other natural ingredients in a top-down approach, and coffee was not the exception.

Digital Business Intelligence (DBI) services are customized advisory offerings provided to coffee cooperatives by Root Capital, a non-profit with more than 20 years of experience working within the sector. A few weeks ago, we spoke with Kate Hyder, Director of Innovation at Root Capital, to chat about their work in digitalization and their thinking about traceability in the coffee value chain.

After we discussed the overview of “The Intersection between climate change and coffee digitalization” in the previous two sessions, as well as tools that have been developed for specific contexts, geographies and communities, in our last session we asked Saurin Nanavati from Ethos Agriculture, Kahlil Baker from Taking Root and Hanna Neuschwander from World Coffee Researchhow we could scale these tools and how the coffee community could become part of the solution to climate change. They not only answered these questions, but also put on the table at least 3 dimensions in which we need to focus and act as soon as possible.

Several digital tools have been developed to prepare against the effects of global warming, but not all have been adapted to the specific needs of coffee. Thanks to Vanessa Rojas from ICAFE, Patrick Lawrence from Sustainable Food Lab and Diego Pons from Colorado State University, we discovered 3 tools that, with investment, data and a lot of research, help coffee growers make better decisions amid the changes that are already happening on our planet.

We know that any answer to this question will be unsatisfactory, although, we want to take the first steps to grasp an answer. This invitation is to join together, float some ideas and talk about all those experiences that have demonstrated that digitalization in coffee has the potential to be a key tool in tackling climate change. We’re facing a global threat, so, everything counts.