The Hashgraph Group, Merck KGaA and PwC Germany said Tuesday they are piloting a cocoa traceability system that links physical authentication scans to records written on the Hedera network, less than four months before the European Union's deforestation regulation starts applying to large and medium operators.
No cocoa company appears in the announcement. The three partners disclose no tonnage, no farm count, no cost and no date for moving past a pilot, and the release carries quotes only from the three technology vendors selling the system. It is the third announcement about the passport platform since February with no named customer, and the second involving Merck KGaA, the Darmstadt-based science and technology company that operates as EMD in the United States and Canada and is unrelated to Merck & Co.
Large and medium operators must comply with Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 from Dec. 30, 2026, with micro and small operators following on June 30, 2027, according to the European Commission. Cocoa is one of seven commodities in scope, alongside cattle, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood.
What the regulation demands is coordinates. Article 9 requires operators to collect and keep for five years "the geolocation of all plots of land" where the commodity was produced, plus the date or time range of production. The regulation defines geolocation as latitude and longitude to at least six decimal places, and for plots above four hectares as a polygon tracing the perimeter. Any deforestation on a listed plot disqualifies everything grown on it.
