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Unfortunately many be due to the same old power dynamics at

play and a focus on marketing rather than
cafe owners are sustainability.
But I remain optimistic. I think the
shying away from potential for digital tools to increase trans-
conversation of parency and knowledge sharing is too
great to ignore. As we’ve seen with the
barista wage. examples above, digital tools have the
potential to create more transparency in
the coffee industry and to ultimately ben-
efit everyone involved in the supply chain.
I believe that the key to unlocking this
potential is education.
If more people are aware of the
benefits of digitalisation, then they will be
more likely to demand it from those who
“Unfortunately many cafe owners
control the flow of information in the
are shying away from conversation. It is
coffee industry. In other words, we need
a hard conversation to have, people
to start a conversation about digitalisation
might end up losing their jobs and coffee
and its potential to create a more transpar-
shops might get bad reputations. But this
ent coffee industry. And that conversation
is real.” The team is currently working
needs to happen now.
on further releases regarding user expe-
rience and additional features for the
app. They believe that there is still work
that needs to be done regarding how
users understand the data results.
However, even if they do under-
stand the results, are they going to use
the information at all? When someone’s
job might be on the line, it is easy to
understand why they would not want to
be the one to start this conversation.
Talking about transparency and being
honest about what a cafe can afford to
pay is not always an easy thing to do. But
unless this conversation happens, the
cycle of underpayment in the coffee
industry will continue.
One way or another, all the experts
I spoke to agreed that knowledge is power
and that if more people are armed with
the right information, progress can be
made. The success of digital tools will only
be as big as the willingness of those in the
coffee industry to use it.
From my perspective, it seems that
there is still some hesitance to move away
from the status quo. Perhaps this is be-
cause the benefits of digitalisation are not
always immediately obvious or because
people are afraid of change. It could also

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