Tony's Chocolonely blockchain pilot

Let's start at the beginning: our mission. Our mission is to make 100% slave-free chocolate the norm. Then you need to know where your cocoa beans come from. If you know exactly where your beans come from, you also know where you need to roll up your sleeves to ensure that there is no illegal child labor or modern slavery on the plantations. Sounds simple, but it is still quite complicated.

transparency in the chain

Making your chain transparent; that's no cakewalk. You need insight into 3 flows.

• The product flow of cocoa beans from West Africa to Europe
• The most important: the flow of information exchanged by everyone in the value chain. After all, the beginning and the end of the chain use the same information to optimize their part in the chain.
• The flow of money: so who receives what amount, directly and indirectly, and when?

from an idea to a system

One of our 5 cooperation principles is strong farmers who have more power in the chain. And a strong farmer is an independent farmer. That's why we wanted a system where all parties involved gain full insight into the value chain, from West Africa to Europe. This means that the consumer can ultimately see from which farmer's cooperative the beans in his bar come, the cooperatives can see where their beans are located and we can see whether our premium has arrived. This way we can all speak to each other if something goes wrong somewhere.

and then there was the Beantracker

We could not set up such a complicated system alone. That's why our IT partner in the field of traceability, ChainPoint, has given us a helping hand. We started working on a bean tracker in 2015, and we have been doing this together with Chainpoint since 2016. The Beantracker has been up and running since October 2016. Who all can work in Beantracker? Cooperatives, local traders, international traders and factories. Each party can upload information and share it with everyone involved in the chain.

from Beantracker to Blockchain

Since the birth of our Beantracker baby, we have of course also been keeping an eye on other technological developments. You've probably heard of blockchain. Known, of course, as the system on which digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, run. But did you also know that blockchain can be used very well to see in real time what is where and at what time. Useful if you want to gain insight into your value chain.

On the other side of Amsterdam, Accenture was just working on this and looking for possibilities for a pilot. They approach Tony's and 1+1=2, because we also wanted to see if we could use blockchain to track our beans.

blockchain; what is that again?

Blockchain is quite complicated, so we'll explain it briefly. Instead of a central administrator (like Tony's for the Beantracker), all information is registered in a very large file that continuously circulates in an online network. When new data is added to the file, the entire file is approved by the entire network. Information can therefore no longer be adjusted afterwards and is always visible to everyone connected to the network. That makes it extra safe. Very nice.

with Blockchain to Ivory Coast

So let's get started! Together with the technology and support of Accenture and our partner cooperative SOCOOPACDI and local trader Ocean in Ivory Coast, we are taking the first steps. A system was developed including a web application for data entry. After extensive training, all the work was done twice for six weeks: registering all transactions in Beantracker, but also in the blockchain system. That was an intensive project, because it involved:

• 900 tons of registered cocoa beans purchased by 63 members of the cooperative
• 35 shipments between cooperative and exporter
• 12 shipments from the local trader to the international trader
• total 400 transactions

But the cool thing about this was that we could track beans in real time. The entire chain is transparent, for everyone. Fat shizzle..

The results of the pilot and what we learned..
There are very few operational value chains that run on blockchain, so it was quite an adventure. Not just for us, but for all players in the chain. We worked intensively together with a lot of energy and dedication and that alone was a great result. It was nice, we could build on the Beantracker experiences, which meant we already knew a lot about each other's IT knowledge, international collaboration and details in the logistics process.

The biggest challenge for a technology where traceability is paramount? That's getting the data from the field to the digital world. A physical value chain with bags of cocoa is a completely different (chocolate) cookie than completely virtual data. As with any experiment, not everything went well. A number of transactions were missed and we could not find out why. We also did not take enough account of the learning process of the users. Training does not mean that you can immediately work at full speed. And some functions that had been developed turned out not to be entirely necessary.

And, what now?

Many ideas and concepts, but the use of blockchain technology for traceability is really still in its infancy. So for now we'll call it a day. We already have a robust, functional and operational platform for our traceable beans that works much the same, but with a different technology: Tony's Beantracker! And we are quite proud of that.

Yet blockchain technology has a lot of potential. Together with ChainPoint, our IT partner for the Beantracker, we continue to closely monitor developments. ChainPoint integrates blockchain technology into its platform to gain maximum benefit from its existing and new technologies. And if suitable applications arise for Tony's, we will test and possibly implement blockchain again.

Our door is always open to other parties to spar and conduct further research into new technologies and applications for a traceable value chain. Because on our own we make our chocolate slave-free, but together we make all chocolate 100% slave-free!