Sucafina looks to AI to cut carbon footprint of coffee sales

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Image: Getty/DavorLovincic (Getty Images)

The Swiss-based coffee company has teamed up with Singapore-based AI-driven food ingredient profiler ProfilePrint to invest in Csmart, a Brazil-based developer of AI-powered image recognition technologies for green coffee grading.

Sucafina aims to be the leading sustainable ‘farm to roaster’ coffee company in the world. It hopes the move will assist with this endeavour by significantly speeding up the time it takes to approve a sample and reduce the carbon footprint of coffee sales.

Csmart’s software, for example, can identify the total defect count and confirm screen size of a sample of green coffee. A benefit of the technology therefore is that it cuts down on the time and resource inefficiencies caused by sending green samples back and forth across the globe. With Csmart’s technology, green coffee can be scanned by the seller and an objective report delivered to the buyer for their review.

So while this technology could help quality controller (QC) professionals by reducing repetitive tasks, improving and accelerating communication between QC teams, it could reducing the carbon emissions from shipping countless green coffee samples to buyers and sellers across the world.

Founded by producer, QC professional, and software developer Francisco Massucci Silveira, Csmart designs AI-powered image recognition technologies for coffee grading that aim to improve the coffee industry for producers, professionals, and roasters alike.

“Ultimately, we hope that collecting and analyzing data on a large scale will unveil new and valuable information about coffee production, enabling the incorporation of data-driven decisions throughout the coffee value chain,” Silveira said.

Alan Lai, founder and CEO of ProfilePrint, added: “Csmart’s image recognition technology provides additional key data points for our global ProfilePrint solution, bringing us closer to our goal of a device agnostic data platform. It also increases the range and accuracy of our prediction capability, empowering buyers and sellers across the supply chain to increase productivity and significantly reduce carbon footprint.”

“We feel confident that Csmart’s proven image recognition technology will bring shared value to producers, importers, and QC professionals alike. This is not about replacing people but empowering QC professionals to become even more productive,” said Dave Behrends, Managing Partner & Head of Trading at Sucafina.