Coffee and cocoa traceability for EU exporters (EUDR)

From 30 December 2026, coffee and cocoa placed on the EU market need the geolocation of every plot of origin, proof that the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020 and a due diligence statement from the EU operator (30 June 2027 if that operator is a micro or small company). For an exporter in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras or Brazil, that means handing over, with every lot, the geolocation of the farms (a polygon for plots over four hectares), the link between farms and bags, and the legality evidence. Unknown Gravity designs the shared record of farms, lots and transfers that carries that data from the cooperative to the importer without anyone rewriting it.

If you export coffee or cocoa to Europe, your buyer no longer asks only for quality and a certificate: it asks for the geolocation of every farm and proof that the beans in the container come from them. We help you build that record across growers, cooperative, exporter and importer, and we tell you which part no technology solves.

01 / What the EUDR requires for coffee and cocoa, and from when

Coffee and cocoa are two of the seven commodities in Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (Art. 1). Annex I lists the headings: for coffee, 0901 (including roasted or decaffeinated coffee, husks and skins, and substitutes containing coffee); for cocoa, 1801 (beans) to 1806 (chocolate and other food preparations containing cocoa). Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2102 adds, among other products, soluble coffee (extracts, essences and concentrates of coffee, subheading 2101 11 00) from 30 December 2027. Check the tariff code of what you sell before you sign a contract.

For each lot, the operator must keep for five years (Art. 9(1)) the geolocation of every plot that supplies beans, with six decimal digits and a polygon for plots over four hectares (Arts. 2(28) and 9(1)(d)); the production date; proof that the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020 (Art. 3) and of legality; and the supplier and customer of each shipment.

Who is responsible and from when, under Article 38 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650:

Link in the chain	What it has to do	From
Grower, cooperative and exporter outside the EU	No direct obligation, but they are the source of the data: without polygons, dates and evidence, the importer cannot file.	No date of its own: the data is needed before your buyer files
Importer placing the coffee or cocoa on the EU market (operator)	Submits the due diligence statement (DDS) in the EU information system before placing or exporting the product.	30 December 2026; 30 June 2027 for micro or small companies established as such by 31 December 2024
Roaster or chocolate maker processing product already declared (downstream operator) and traders	No new DDS: they rely on the reference numbers of whoever filed it.	30 December 2026, whatever their size

Country risk. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua are not listed in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093, so they are standard risk. Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are low risk. The full regulation, the DDS in TRACES and the penalties are covered on our EUDR traceability page.

02 / The real coffee and cocoa chain, and where it breaks

The data is born on the farm and declared by the importer, several links later. Coffee moves from the grower, sometimes through a middleman, to the mill or cooperative, the exporter, the importer and the roaster. Cocoa moves from the grower to the buying centre or cooperative, the exporter, the trader or grinder and the chocolate maker. It breaks in five places:

Unmapped farms. A single plot without geolocation leaves the whole lot it feeds without proof, and a point where a polygon was needed does not count either.
Middlemen. Part of the crop arrives through informal buyers who do not record which farm it comes from. The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, in its work on Honduran coffee, stresses the need to bring those intermediaries in so that smallholders are not shut out.
Mixing at collection. As the Dutch CBI puts it for cocoa, it cannot be mixed with cocoa of unknown origin, and the Commission guidance does not accept mass balance under those conditions. Either you segregate, or every farm in the lot is mapped.
Every link with its own system. In Honduras, according to the forestry institute ICF, supply chain actors agreed to use their own traceability systems. Without shared farm and lot identifiers, data does not move from one system to the next and gets keyed in again.
Who controls the polygon. In Colombia, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) only shows exporters the coordinates of growers who have consented to the use of their data. And the CBI recommends that growers keep ownership of their data to get better access to the EU market.

What your country's registry already gives you

Country	System	What it provides, according to the official source
Colombia	FNC geolocation service, since 30 August 2024	Coordinates or polygons of consenting growers, and whether the coffee was planted before 31 December 2020. Only for exporters with a valid registration, and without a deforestation risk analysis: the exporter does that step.
Peru	Farmers Register (PPA) and AgroDigital app (MIDAGRI)	More than 150,000 plots geolocated by December 2025, with systems connected to FAO's WHISP and Global Forest Watch Pro.
Ecuador	Single Operator Registration System (Ministry of Agriculture, April 2025) and Agrocalidad's GUIA system	Registration of growers with the georeference of their export cocoa plots.
Honduras	IHCAFE app to georeference farms, since September 2024	Checking zero deforestation and setting the starting point of traceability; from there, each actor uses its own system.
Brazil	Serasa Experian protocol for Cecafé (Cafés do Brasil platform)	Lookups by CPF, CNPJ or CAR for embargoes or overlaps with deforestation across more than 170 public databases.

These registries solve the plot, which is half the problem. The link between that plot, the bag and the container is still up to the private supply chain. As a reference outside Latin America, Ghana has rolled out its cocoa traceability system, according to the Commission report of May 2026, and Côte d'Ivoire's Conseil du Café-Cacao was developing a national one in 2024, according to the CBI. If you also sell food that needs its own lot traceability under Regulation 178/2002, we explain it in food traceability.

03 / Verified coffee and cocoa cases, with their status

Unknown Gravity has no coffee or cocoa traceability cases of its own. These are third-party cases, with a primary source and their status as of 16 October 2026. "Not stated" means the source says neither that it continues nor that it ended.

Case	What it does	Since	Status
MiCacao (Open Cocoa Chain): GIZ, Helvetas Peru, FEDECACAO and the Open Food Chain Foundation. Cocoa, Peru (San Martín) and Colombia (Bucaramanga, Huila and Tolima)	Growers use a free app, which works offline, to record cocoa from deforestation-free plots. The data is made available to the supply chain on an open blockchain, and companies connect their own systems through APIs.	December 2022	GIZ project planned to run until April 2025; still a pilot in September 2024. In July 2025 its director said more than 4,000 producers used it. Not stated whether it continues.
Trace, by Fairfood, with Solidaridad and the Capucas Cooperative. Coffee, Honduras	Blockchain traceability tool. European consumers scan an on-pack QR code to see where the coffee comes from.	2022: first container to Scotland. The year-one report lists 200 coffee farmers, 774 transactions logged on the blockchain and 42,000 kg traced	Pilot under the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme. Fairfood has been part of Solidaridad since 1 August 2026. Not stated whether the pilot continues.
Farmer Connect and its Thank My Farmer app, developed with the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, J.M. Smucker, Sucafina, ITOCHU, Volcafe and other companies. Coffee	A platform on IBM Food Trust blockchain technology to bring together origin data that each participant kept separately, plus an app for consumers to learn where their coffee came from.	January 2020	IBM withdrew IBM Food Trust from marketing on 14 May 2025. Agridence bought Farmer Connect in August 2025; at the time of the sale it was described as an EUDR compliance platform, and farmerconnect.com now redirects to Agridence's website. Not stated whether the app continues.
TraceFoodChain, by Permarobotics, designed with the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT and the Honduran coffee chain. Coffee, Honduras	Open tool; its sources do not mention blockchain. It combines a shared plot registry (the Linux Foundation's Asset Registry) and FAO's WHISP.	2024	Pilot in 2024 with 1,200 smallholders. In 2025 it moved beyond the pilot to voluntary use: around 17 organisations, including Capucas and the Marcala Denomination of Origin, use producer ID cards linked to TraceFoodChain in their purchasing, and 859 more producers enrolled, according to a June 2026 Alliance study. There is no record of IHCAFE and ICF adopting it as a national standard.

What they show:

The three blockchain cases started as development-cooperation pilots or company consortia, and none has a primary source today that shows it running in its original form. The only one on record as in use, TraceFoodChain, grew because cooperatives and buyers adopted it to validate each purchase at the first point of sale without disclosing where the farm is; its sources do not mention blockchain.
The platform can disappear before the obligation does. IBM withdrew its own with no replacement: if your farm data only lives inside one service, its shutdown leaves you without a file. Use open formats (GeoJSON, EPCIS) and keep your own copy.

More cases by sector, including the ones that closed, in blockchain in supply chain.

04 / Architecture: farm, lot, credentials and network

The design starts from one rule: the chain holds proof that a piece of data existed and has not changed; the data itself, especially personal data, stays off-chain.

Component	What it holds	On-chain	Off-chain
Plot	Unique identifier, GeoJSON polygon with six decimal digits, production date, deforestation analysis and legality evidence	Identifier and hash of the polygon and the analysis	Grower's name, ID number and coordinates
Lot	Bag, export lot or container; kilos; supplying plots; processing steps	Signed events for collection, milling, export and receipt, in EPCIS 2.0	Prices and commercial terms
Credentials	Identity of cooperative, exporter and importer; signed analysis; certificates	Registry of issuers and revocations	The full document
Statement	DDS reference number and the lots it covers	Fingerprint and link to the lots	The statement itself, which lives in the EU information system

Credentials instead of PDFs. A deforestation analysis can travel signed. Global Forest Watch Pro returns digitally signed deforestation results for the producer data MiCacao sends it, and the project's director describes this as a verifiable credential. The importer checks the signature without asking for the report again, and the grower reuses it with the next buyer.
Shared identifiers. A common plot identifier, like those in the plot registry TraceFoodChain uses, stops cooperative, exporter and importer giving the same farm three different codes. Each company's digital identity shows who signed each event.
Network. If the consortium includes importers or roasters in Spain, Spain's blockchain services infrastructure, ISBE: public-permissioned, EVM-compatible, with verified company identity and a subscription with a transaction quota (transactions above it are paid separately), no token and no gas. If a few companies run the governance, a private consortium network. If you only need public proof, an open network, which is what MiCacao chose. Unknown Gravity is a member of Alastria, which operates ISBE.
Personal data. A smallholder's farm coordinates identify a person. The EDPB Guidelines 02/2025 recommend keeping personal data off-chain and, if anything goes on it, a commitment or a salted or keyed hash, which may still be personal data.

What no chain solves: whether the beans in the bag really come from those plots, which is proven by physical segregation, inspection and audit, or whether the polygon was captured correctly. That is the oracle problem: a chain stores bad data just as faithfully.

05 / How we approach it: from a one-container pilot to a file per lot

We do not sell a closed platform. We design the data and integrity layer on top of what the cooperative, exporter and importer already use, and on top of your country's public registry.

Chain assessment. Who the EU operator is, how many farms and middlemen there are, where the beans get mixed and what data your national registry already gives you (FNC, PPA, GUIA, IHCAFE or Cecafé).
Data model. Plot, lot, transfer and statement, with identifiers every link understands and events in EPCIS 2.0.
Polygon capture and validation. An app that works offline; checks for six decimal digits, polygons above four hectares and overlaps; grower consent.
Shared record and credentials. Smart contracts for events and fingerprints, analysis and identity credentials, and the network that fits your governance.
Pilot with a real container. From collection to receipt in Europe, with the file your buyer will ask for, before scaling to the whole harvest.
Data protection. Personal data off-chain and an impact assessment before production.

Deliverables:

Map of the chain, its mixing points and who supplies each piece of data.
Data model with a justified split between on-chain and off-chain.
Polygon capture tool and connector to the national registry.
Per-lot or per-container pack for the importer: GeoJSON, plots, kilos, evidence and references.
Tested smart contracts and documentation for your team.

The cross-sector architecture is on our blockchain traceability page and, if you also sell processed food, on our food traceability system page.

Sources

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is my country's farm registry enough to comply with the EUDR?

No. Those registries solve geolocation, which is the foundation. But the importer has to link each lot to its plots, assess the risk and prove legality. The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation itself states that its geolocation service does not include a deforestation risk analysis and that the exporter does that step.

Can I sell coffee or cocoa bought from middlemen to the EU?

Only if you know which plots it comes from and they are geolocated: the EUDR requires the geolocation of every plot of origin (Art. 9(1)(d)). The way out is to register the middleman as one more link, with its suppliers and deliveries, or to keep those beans separate and sell them to other markets. Mixing them with traced beans leaves the whole lot without proof.

Who controls the farm polygons?

It depends on the agreement between grower, cooperative and buyer. The CBI recommends that growers keep ownership of their data, and in Colombia the FNC only shares the coordinates of growers who have consented. We design it so the polygon stays in the grower's or cooperative's registry and the buyer receives verifiable proof, not a copy that can never be withdrawn.

Are soluble coffee and chocolate covered?

Chocolate and other preparations containing cocoa (heading 1806) are already in Annex I. Soluble coffee comes in on 30 December 2027 under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2102, published on 17 September 2026, which also takes bovine hides and skins out of scope. What comes in is extracts, essences and concentrates of coffee (subheading 2101 11 00); preparations based on them are not listed.

Do I need blockchain to export coffee or cocoa to the EU?

No. The EUDR neither requires nor mentions it: it asks for verifiable information, kept for five years and declared in the EU information system. A shared record helps when cooperatives, exporters and importers that do not share a system need to pass data along without anyone rewriting it. If a single exporter controls the whole chain, its database with an audit trail is enough.

This page is informative. It is not legal, tax or investment advice, and it does not replace a case-by-case review. The rules cited change: check the current version on BOE and EUR-Lex.

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