Digitizing Ancient Supply Chains

Frankincense is one of the most iconic natural products in the world, traded internationally for 6,000 years. Today it is an industry worth of $1 billion annually for its use in cosmetics, fragrance, medicines, incense, and supplements. Despite the long trade history and significant contemporary value, astonishingly little is known about the supply chain. Where do the resins come from? Which trees, which areas? Who harvests them, and how? Everyone from individual traders to massive companies struggles to answer these questions.

Our project has dual objectives: first, to explore the supply chain and production system to understand the current status of the trees, the socio-ecological dynamics underlying their harvesting, and the way that different environments influence the complex chemistry of the resin. Second, to develop fully traceable supply webs for the resins: by tracing it to source, and maintaining that traceability throughout the supply chain from tree to customer, it becomes possible to truly link sustainable/ethical production and economic value, thereby enabling true accountability in the supply chain.

Digitization of the supply chain is one of our key tools to accomplish this. We have been using ArcGIS to map frankincense trees and collect sustainability data, and developed a custom blockchain-enabled app to track resin purchases, monitor payments, and integrate tree health data.