Co-Fe — Coffee, minus the farmer exploitation.

The coffee supply chain has been broken for decades, coffee farmers only receive an average of 8% of the price consumers pay. The team at Co-Fe, a new project build on top of NEO, intends to fix that broken chain. Meet John Cooper, the founder of Co-Fe.

“The current coffee supply chain is a bloated mess that exploits the farmers and creates the most value for the middle-men agencies. The blockchain allows us to change this. Together we can revolutionise the coffee supply chain. Together we can change the world.”

Hi John, first things first, tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

“Hey! Absolutely, so I’m a keen entrepreneur with practice in enterprise start-up. I have a First-class with honours degree in Business & Management and have held marketing roles in international, industry-leading companies in the engineering sector. My true passion is in creating fairness and equality in business practices. Businesses play a leading role in society these days, we interact with numerous different companies on a daily basis so it is only right that they should act in accordance with our societal rules. Every time I have come across situations where business practices and processes have only catered to the needs of a select few I have felt the need to act.”

John Cooper, founder of Co-Fe

What made you want to fight farmer-exploitation (and why specifically coffee)?

“This is quite an interesting story I think. So myself and Rob, the real starters of the idea, were both working on our dissertations at the time. We were doing different topics, but we each had a strong interest in the other’s topic and so we would always discuss anything we found that was really interesting. I was focussing on ethical business practices, with a focus on advertising, and he was studying the coffee industry and consumer perceptions.”

“One time we met up for a coffee and were talking through our research, a lot of the reading I had done in that week was centred around the practices of the coffee industry and in particular the practice of these fair-trade labels. Coincidentally, he had been studying the same thing but from the markets point of view, so he was seeing how a lot of consumers don’t believe they can trust these labels because there are so many and no-one really knows the difference.”

“We began to identify a range of really big issues in the industry and we started brainstorming solutions and came up with an early iteration of Co-Fe. We both left with a strong feeling of wanting to do something but we weren’t too sure about it, we individually started to talk about the idea with other people, both internal and external to the industry and we began to refine the idea until we got until where we are today.”

“In terms of motivation, we are both avid travellers. We have visited coffee-growing countries and regions and seen the conditions in which many of these people spend their entire lives. I think it is sometimes easy to forget how easy we as Westerners have life, we are born into relative wealth, and unless catastrophe happens, that is never really challenged.”

“We came up with something that can do some real, tangible good in the world and none of the team wants to be inactive when we know we can change the lives of countless people who really need help. We specifically chose coffee farmers simply because we all love coffee and it is a massive industry that needs reform.”

Co-Fe wants to cut out the middleman to improve prices for the farmers AND consumers. I can only imagine that you have to be in direct contact with the farmers to make this happen. How do you want to realize this, are you already in contact with farmers? Correct my if my assumptions are wrong.

“You’re spot on, we do need to be in direct contact with farmers, and of course to make the whole model work, also roasters.”

“Thankfully, roasters are fairly easy, the team has some connections in the industry who are interested and we are always reaching out to others who seem like they could be a good fit.”

“Farmers are slightly more difficult, both actually contacting them and then communicating with them, although our Onboarder is fluent in Spanish which should make it considerably easier to communicate with farmers in South America.”

Taken from the whitepaper: “the current supply-chain is horribly inefficient, the high number of middle-men agencies slows down the process meaning it can take an average of six months for the coffee to complete the process and get to the consumer; consequently, the beans are less fresh, and the coffee is worse.”

“So far, we are in direct contact with a very small number of farmers. We’ve intentionally kept it small so that we can work closely with them to flesh out the intricacies of the platform. To really achieve the goal of removing farmer exploitation it needs to be designed with their needs and requirements in mind, so we feel that the best way to achieve this is with a small focus group that we can really mine for key data.”

“Going forward our plan is to keep reaching out in the ways that we have been and relying on word-of-mouth to get farmers interested. At the moment, we are finding that it can be difficult to get them as fired up as we are because it’s an abstract idea and that not many are familiar with the base concepts of blockchain or cryptocurrency technologies. However, once the initial farmers start seeing tangible results it should become much easier as we won’t be relying on an understanding of the concepts so much.”

“Also, most of our success in contacting farmers has come from people hearing about the project, knowing someone in the coffee industry and connecting us. Some of these contacts are being saved for later in the process (i.e. not being used as part of the initial focus group) but we will soon be offering bounties and rewards for anyone that refers a successful farmer, roaster, or anyone else in the industry (successful being someone who wants to work with us and us them). If any of your readers know someone in the industry and are interested in our bounty program, they can contact me at john@cofe-project.com”

“The objective of the Co-Fe project is to revolutionise the current coffee supply chain. Through direct, transparent transactions enabled by the Co-Fe marketplace and recorded on the blockchain, the Co-Fe team aims to increase the equality of all parties in a new coffee supply chain. The removal of a considerable number of middle-men agencies will allow each party to maximise the financial and social benefit of their negotiations whilst producing a fresher, better quality product.”

As can be read in the whitepaper “A NEP-5 token on the NEO network called Co-Fe Token (COFE) will be issued.” Why is there the need for COFE, is it not possible to use an existing token, e.g. GAS?

“A very similar system could be produced using an existing token, however, I think there would be a number of fundamental and quite damaging flaws to using an existing token. There are a few examples in the whitepaper, but arguably the deciding factor for creating our own token is a socio-economic factor.”

“The majority of coffee farmers are living and operating in incredibly fragile eco-systems that we can’t possibly predict or manage. If we used an existing token which later drastically increased in value (as I think GAS might) then early-adopting farmers might become incredibly rich almost overnight. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it also isn’t what we are aiming to achieve. In that situation, we might actually be compounding the problem. The worst problem is that it is completely out of our hands and is completely reliant on the market and other factors impacting the price of GAS. Instead, by creating our own token, we hope to have a little more control over the result, or at least, to be able to avoid the mass growth potential or manipulation that the price of an existing token might see.”

Interesting to add, the COFE token is used on the Co-Fe marketplace to pay the farmer, the roasters and coffee-shops. Could you shortly summarise the ‘Transaction Framework’ (3 types of transactions using COFE)?

Sure thing. So in the first instance of the project, we see there being 3 types of transactions for COFE Tokens. There is the possibility for more to be introduced in later stages but right now the ones we will focus on building support systems for are the following;

Purchases of Coffee Beans from Farmers

This involves consumers browsing the Co-Fe marketplace to find the beans they want and the farmer they want to purchase from, and then issuing the transaction.

This involves consumers browsing the Co-Fe marketplace to find the beans they want and the farmer they want to purchase from, and then issuing the transaction. Purchases of Roasting and/or Grinding from Roasteries

Much like above, this involves consumers choosing a roastery to process their beans for them. We anticipate consumers will choose based on brand, reputation or geographical proximity

Much like above, this involves consumers choosing a roastery to process their beans for them. We anticipate consumers will choose based on brand, reputation or geographical proximity Purchases of Goods at a Co-FeHouse

Co-FeHouses will operate as fully-functioning coffeehouses, not just roasteries. As such, any products (i.e. cups of coffee) will be purchasable using COFE Tokens.

Are there any other reasons, besides the ones mentioned in the whitepaper (fast, reliable, free) why you chose for NEO as a platform?

“So as you said some of the main factors are the inherent qualities of the NEO platform being fast, reliable and free, but there were also other main factors that played pretty big roles in the decision.”

I am a huge fan of NEO’s collective approach to regulation. I think that cryptocurrencies and blockchains shouldn’t change their nature to conform to regulation created before they were imagined, however, it is important not to disregard the need for regulatory compliance. I think that NEO has a very healthy and forward-thinking approach to compliance. The Sponsor Giveback Plan was a prime example of this, it isn’t a necessary action, but for me, it shows that they put the community first. I believe, ensuring things are done in a manner which is careful not to screw anyone over (excuse the phrase) is the intention of the regulation and NEO’s action stay true to the values of the crypto community. It is the approach I wanted to take with Co-Fe and so it seemed like NEO would be the best place for us. I have been a fan of NEO for a while. I learned about the project back in the AntShares days and was sold almost instantly. I had been a fan of Ethereum but thought the need for Solidity just complicated the matter, so I was enthusiastic when I saw that NEO was a smart-economy that catered to general developers. I researched the project and started to learn more and became really excited by Da’s vision and passion. When I started to create the idea of Co-Fe and talk with people from the community I was overwhelmed with the positive responses I received and I instantly knew this was the right platform.

“The Co-Fe project proposes to use a significant portion of the funding raised in the crowdfunding stage to create a number of Co-Fe Houses with roasting capabilities; essentially, a network of Co-Fe -branded coffee-shops.” Honestly, this sounds really awesome, but it wouldn’t it be more cost-efficient to try and contract existing roasteries? What is your reasoning behind this?

“You’re completely right. The original idea was to just do the Co-FeHouses, but once we really started testing the idea it became apparent that existing roasters are needed. Now, the Co-Fe network will contain both existing roasteries and our own Co-FeHouses. There are benefits and drawbacks to a model strictly pertaining to either, so by combining the two approaches we hope to get the best of both worlds, with some of the major benefits being:”

A network containing existing roasters will allow the project to serve a wider geographical region

Our own Co-FeHouses means we can guarantee that there will be at least a base level of roasting functionality on the network

If the cost of roasting is too high across the network, we can reduce the price at the Co-FeHouses to increase competitive action and reduce the average cost of roasting across the network

General Information

Other Team Members

Rob Henderson, The Marketer

Currently works at a tech start-up in London working with cutting-edge technology focussing on helping consumers make better, more informed decisions.

A successful writer and blogger, with a number of articles focussing on coffee and the industry.

Runs his own marketing agency on the side.

Vince Samios, The Business Developer

History of successful entrepreneurship and business start-up in a range of industries. Currently operating his own extremely successful venture in the security sector.

Long-term member of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community

Numerous connections in the coffee industry

Vladina Chira, The Onboarder

Currently partaking in further education specialising in Marketing Strategy.

Complete fluency in English, Spanish and Romanian, with conversational ability in French and Portuguese.

Donny Jose, The Developer

Joins the team with massive amounts of experience in programming and coding

Has worked for a range of Fortune 100 and 500 companies, including some Security & Defence companies.

Joins as the smart-contract developer with the ability to join in the platform development if needed.

Token Metrics

The entire supply of COFE will be hard-capped at the 1,000,000,000 coins created during the initial crowdfunding period.

Creation of COFE and initial account functionalities

The Cofe Token is a NEP-5 token on the NEO platform. Its design will follow the widely adopted token implementation standards, and therefore will be easy to manage using a number of existing systems.

In the situation where the maximum number of tokens are created during the crowdfunding period:

Total = 1,000,000,000

Crowdfunding participants = 800,000,000

The Co-Fe team = 50,000,000

The Co-Fe brand = 150,000,000

No COFE will be created, minted or mined after the crowdfunding period. COFE will be transferable once the crowdfunding is successfully completed.

A detailed explanation for each section can be found in the whitepaper

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