Blockchain Adoption Gains. Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Transparency in the Coffee Sector

Abstract

Modern day consumers increasingly value and demand transparency and traceability in their purchased products. However, the verifications of (global) value chains’ responsible processes have traditionally been left to trust. Blockchain holds the potential to disrupt entire industries by offering a range of tools to increase and ensure transparency. However, introduced in 2008, it has struggled to gain widespread adoption. Recurrent barriers have been related to fears with its ability to finance itself, once implemented. Aiming to provide empirical evidence on the increased earnings that this technology could provide to companies, this study analyses the willingness to pay of consumers for the verifiable transparency that blockchain technologies could provide. Using Logit and ordinary least squares (OLS) approaches, we find consumers to be concerned with fair production and transparency issues, but still lack full knowledge or trust of blockchain’s advantages and/or its adequate use by coffee industry practitioners.