Swiss Coffee Alliance partners with blockchain specialist Ambrosus

The Swiss Coffee Alliance, a trade group that empowers coffee producers with scientific and technological expertise, has joined with Ambrosus, a leading blockchain-Internet of Things solution provider for quality assurance in food and pharmaceutical industries. Combining the alliance's robust network of farmers, roasters, product developers, manufacturers and retailers and Ambrosus' proprietary sensor-to-blockchain technology, the partnership has the potential to transform the global coffee market by unearthing new operating efficiencies. “Swiss Coffee Alliance is one of the largest coffee trade-groups in Europe, and in the world,” Ambrosus Chief Executive Officer Angel Versetti said. “They play a vital role in the import/export dynamics of this market. We are excited to help the Alliance integrate the Ambrosus blockchain into its consulting infrastructure, so we can together drive sustainable transformation, transparency and trust throughout global coffee value chains.”  Claudinei Monteiro, the SCA's chief technology officer, shared Versetti's enthusiasm. “This is a truly transformative partnership that captures the full essence and spirit of Swiss ingenuity,” he said. “With the Swiss Coffee Alliance's deep sector-expertise and Ambrosus' unrivaled decentralised supply-chain solution, we are going to create a more profitable and equitable ecosystem for all parties in the production line, with a key emphasis on those who have been abandoned by Wall Street.” This partnership aims to correct the unethical distribution of profits throughout the ecosystem, which the partners see as a key dysfunction in the global coffee value chain. Specifically, while global coffee revenues soared from $30 billion in 1991 to $81 billion in 2016, smallholder coffee farmers have seen their incomes wither from 40 per cent to under 10 per cent in the same period, according to Fairtrade International. To make matters worse, farmers in the top producing countries – Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam and Indonesia, which account for 60 percent of the world's production – live in poverty-line conditions, barely making enough money to cover the costs of production.