Production transparency and blockchain technology are natural associates in the revolutionization of supply chain management. This may appear like a business platitude recorded about a new corporate event, but distributed ledger technology keeps making development with large companies. Farmer Connect declared today that it would collaborate with Smucker’s Folgers brand coffee to utilize the IBM blockchain platform uniting producers to consumers. A QR code will enable customers who purchase 1850 Coffee to view how it was developed and brought to the shelf.

Farmer Connect needs to reduce incompetence in our food supply – this means eliminating the middleman and third-party services, which take from the small farmer’s bottom line. Blockchain technology will verify the food crop, in this case, coffee, to the farmer, and its source location. Blockchain authentication and identification may not increase Smucker’s earnings, but it could assist farmers better control their crops undeviatingly with broader markets. In effect, this declaration between Farmer Connect, IBM, and Smucker is a prototype for new blockchain ventures.

Folger’s will be the first large U.S. food brand to use this service. IBM said in the declaration, “Leveraging IBM’s blockchain technology, consumers can now trace their coffee back to its origin on a platform designed to help increase traceability, efficiency, and fairness in the coffee supply chain.”Farmer Connect’s website will offer where the coffee was grown, processed, and exported. Customers can know if the drink in their hands was part of clean water and small farm agriculture initiatives.

“We know that consumers are increasingly interested in transparency in the supply chains for the products they enjoy and we have been committed to helping promote this as part of our coffee sustainability strategy,” said Joe Stanziano, senior vice president and general manager of coffee at the J.M. Smucker Company in a statement. “Our work with Farmer Connect and IBM helps connect coffee lovers to the producers who provide their favorite morning drink, but it also gives them the opportunity to support these hardworking smallholder farmers and their families.”