There are several certification platforms and monitoring tools to help companies build a more holistic record of the pathway coffee has taken through the global supply chain of interactions from origin to its final destination.
The type of information required for establishing traceability depends on the goals of the roasting company, whether that be demand-driven by securing consistency of quality and appellation, food safety requirements for product distribution, monitoring social and economic justice, or achieving environmental sustainability goals.
Coffee roasters have the option to develop their own expectations and internal standards for defining what sufficient traceability may include. Investments in web-based tracking systems and national organic certification standards along with fair-trade platforms have all helped play a role in improving the relay of information for building a traceable product to the end consumer.
For example, when roasters opt to provide certified organic roasted coffee selections to their customers, traceability requirements are outlined in these third-party certification program standards, leading roasters to adopt specific guidelines and processes which often helps alleviate much of the guesswork in developing a robust and trusted traceability system through their roasting facility.
Requests for traceability at the farm level have also resulted in supporting improvements and growth of robust traceability practices by cooperatives through the requirements of following detailed reporting and monitoring practices.
Traceability starts in the field. Cooperatives identify zones and separate producers by sectors, and in some cases include additional maps that identify cup quality and altitude. When each producer member delivers their dried coffee parchment to the cooperative warehouse, the producer is identified by these geographical attributes and then separated by quality, often into larger homogenized batches with other producers of similar quality, location, or altitude. The list of producers and volume are kept on file to help trace the origins of each coffee, prior to being blended into larger container lots.
ElevaFinca Helps Strengthen Traceability.
ElevaFinca works directly with cooperatives that participate in annual organic auditing and fair-trade reporting requirements. With the support of each administration and technical field team from participating cooperatives, ElevaFinca produces a detailed report of the list of producers, general variety of coffee, and quantity delivered by each farmer contributing to a specific coffee container, production lot, or general coffee offering for each contract that has opted to invest in the ElevaFinca Traceability and Sustainability Report.
With the purchase of the ElevaFinca premium, we offset the carbon footprint of each coffee container shipment and draft a green coffee traceability and sustainability report tailored to each purchase.
This report includes:
Key information on the cooperatives and pictures.
Information on the project activities linked with the purchase.
The list of producers involved, types of coffee, and quantities.
Carbon offset certificates.
The ElevaFinca Green Coffee Traceability and Sustainability Report provides greater detail often not readily available to the end buyer and serves as an additional layer of traceability in addition to organic and fair-trade certifications. Within every coffee contract, a buyer has the option to add the ElevaFinca Premium for an additional 0.05 USD/lb premium. A few more cents within each contract allow us to strengthen fieldwork activities and related projects within the alliance of coffee cooperatives.
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