Here is another example of an organisation tapping into what they consider to be an increasing consumer desire to find out about the provenance of the products they buy. Crop to Cup – which helps coffee farmers bring their products to market – guarantees fair prices to farmers and reinvests a percentage of its profits to developing the local community.
But Crop to Cup is working to take the subject of fair trade a step further by introducing platforms which allow consumers to interact directly with growers in developing countries and ask them questions and learn about their farming practices directly and in richer detail.
As global markets become more transparent and interactive, technologies such as these seem poised to break open the opacity of supply chain and give end consumers greater ability to access work and environmental conditions for themselves.