Be wary before jumping on the blockchain bandwagon

IN AUGUST 2020, global coffee chain Starbucks announced an initiative to let customers track where their cuppa comes from, and for farmers to also trace where their beans end up. This bean-to-cup tracking programme was several years in the making - the company first announced it in 2018 - and uses blockchain technology powered by Microsoft.

But does Starbucks really need blockchain technology to trace coffee? Why would the initiative call for the use of public and private keys, and decentralised, immutable ledgers?

After all, Michelle Burns, the company's executive vice-president for global coffee, tea and cocoa, had said during the announcement of the initiative that Starbucks has already "been able to trace every coffee (it buys) from every farm for almost 2 decades".