What this paper covers
Upstream cacao is where provenance is either created or permanently lost. Beans from many smallholders are pooled at the fermentation box, again at the buying station, and again at the port, and each pooling step erases the link between a physical lot and the farm that grew it. Fine flavor origin premiums, meanwhile, are paid on exactly that link.
This paper is written for cooperatives, estates, and importers rather than for finished-goods brands. It covers how fine flavor origin fraud operates, what EUDR Article 9 due diligence actually demands in terms of geolocation and record-keeping, and how child-labor and deforestation obligations turn into concrete data requirements at the farm gate.
The proposed model is a B2B2B registry: provenance is registered upstream at the point where identity still exists, then carried forward as lots move and merge, so downstream makers inherit verified data instead of re-asserting it. The final section covers cooperative onboarding — hardware, connectivity, and training realities in origin countries.