Coca Cola Taps Ethereum Blockchain for Supply Chain Management

The Coke One North America (CONA) aims to utilize Ethereum’s Baseline Protocol in a new project to manage supply chains across different bottling suppliers.

Coca Cola to Create Botting Harbor with Ethereum-based Network

According to a report from Monday (August 3, 2020), CONA established a project called “Coca-Cola Bottling Harbor,” which will leverage the Baseline Protocol. The use of the protocol will ensure that transactions are private and stored on the Ethereum blockchain.

The project is an extension of the earlier Hyperledger-based platform used to handle inter-organizational supply chain management for bottling companies. In this new iteration of the system, the beverage giant wants to leverage blockchain technology across a broader range of key market participants in the raw material supply and product distribution chain.

CONA says the primary objective of the initiative is the creation of a “Coca Cola Bottling Harbor” — a decentralized architecture that will lower the entry barrier for bottling suppliers. The project forms the latest example of blockchain’s increasing utilization in the supply chain management (SCM) arena, especially with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The project, which is a joint effort by CONA, Unibright, and Provide, will display its first results in the last quarter of 2020. Also, by introducing the Baseline Protocol, it would reduce the barrier entry process for Coca-Cola bottling suppliers, which will also include raw material vendors.

With the initial project achieving its aim by leveraging Hyperledger Fabric, CONA decided to employ the Baseline Protocol in its latest project. Also, integrating the Baseline protocol will reduce delivery errors and minimize cost barriers for small suppliers to enable easy integration.

Also, using the Ethereum mainnet highlights an important feature, which is “providing extensibility for DeFi & asset tokenization use-cases.”

COVID-19 and the Case for Increased Blockchain Penetration of SCM

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic crippled different organizations and negatively impacted the global supply chain. Consequently, the pandemic has caused businesses to pivot to blockchain technology.

As reported by CryptoPotato back in May 2020, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduced the Rapid Supplier Connect, a blockchain-powered solution that would tackle the shortage in the medical supply chain.

Blockchain has also seen use cases in the Agricultural sector. The Indian government back in May collaborated with blockchain firm Agri10x, to give farmers more profit for their produce. The partnership will eliminate middlemen in the distribution process and give farmers a better chance of global visibility.