Era of We Builds Community-Driven Commerce in the Coffee Supply Chain Using Opsio and AWS

Consumers are more aware of supply chains than ever before. They want to make decisions based not just on price but also on factors such as source, processing, and transportation. Era of We is a estate-to-drinker coffee supply chain. It uses a single system shared by all participants in the supply chain. Era of We successfully realized its ground-breaking vision for consumer-led ecommerce using AWS.

Swedish startup Era of We is creating an innovative service in the food and beverage sector. The goal is to reinvent the coffee supply chain by creating an online environment to bring together everyone involved, from the estates that grow the beans to the people who drink the coffee.

The company believes that by having farmers, agents, roasters, restaurants, hotels, cafes, and end consumers share their knowledge, experience, and values, they can coordinate the flow of coffee, eliminate communication barriers, and create a chain of trust and transparency for a healthier supply chain and ethical brands that promote sustainability.

This empowers every stakeholder in the supply chain to be proactive with their brands and growth. Through its provision of collaborative spaces for every stakeholder, something that many at the lower end of the supply chain don't have access to, it promotes a farmer-first approach which is key to building an equitable market, where those who love coffee can make a living out of it.

Era of We also hoped to end up with a truly original beverage that brings new levels of fairness, ethics, and experience. “We had a very ambitious vision, which was all about using the connectivity and community that the modern internet provides to reinvent the supply chain as a place where all stakeholders could share to increase fairness and experience,” says Erik Hedlund, CEO of Era of We. “This project could be built only with the latest tools and techniques, with the help of someone who fully understood them, and us.”

Era of We brought in AWS Partner Opsio AB to help turn its vision into a fully-fledged system using Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Over a series of design and development meetings, teams from Era of We, Opsio, and AWS planned an overall architecture with three main components: front end, ecommerce, and backend.

Different teams were tasked with building each component. Opsio took responsibility for overall project management and for creating the common management and systems that brought everything together within a reasonable timeframe and with the ability to grow. “Era of We has a unique vision and intense business focus, and we offered the experience and resources to realize those with confidence,” says Premjeet Sahu, Senior Technical Architect at Opsio.

Opsio partitioned the system’s three main components into a core for business logic, validation, APIs, and backend service provision. A front end of multiple websites shows appropriate services to each class of user. And there’s ecommerce support for handling purchases, payments, and logistics—it’s a full-featured shopping platform for food and drink.

External teams were tasked with ecommerce and front-end development, while Opsio created the management systems and service provisioning that brought everything together securely, scalably, and swiftly.

Only the combination of cloud-based services and modern DevSecOps principles could bring a system with global scope and complexity within the grasp of a startup. This made it possible to deliver viable development within budget and on time. It also allowed the teams to create something that’s manageable day-to-day and supports future innovation.

The project called for collaborative development among different teams and team members: enterprise and software architects, QA experts, analysis and security specialists, suppliers, and partners. “The challenges in collaborative development between global teams are significant, but so is reinventing a global supply chain as a community,” says Hedlund. “The scope of one matched the scope of the other, so we were comfortable that Opsio had the breadth to manage both.”

The project needed to take place across different locations and platforms. But it also needed to be synchronized through tools that supported continuous development, testing, and delivery. None of these techniques could stand by themselves, so the teams developed a fully integrated system that didn’t sacrifice security for ease of working.

Opsio built the backbone of Era of We’s development and operations on a completely managed pipeline of AWS services that provide a serverless microservices architecture. By adopting infrastructure as code, the whole system is dynamically configurable by parameters that can be modified as needed without coding changes.

This brings two advantages. It gives Era of We the ability to redefine system and resource allocation as demand or new features require. It also integrates this process into the same automation systems that monitor and manage all aspects of development.

Using AWS CodePipeline, along with AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodeDeploy, Era of We has automated the build, test, and deployment phases, which provides continuous, fast, and reliable application and system updates.

The full implementation relies on many other AWS services. All of these services work together to automate provisioning and security system components, providing continuous data for service analytics and business model planning, assurance of business continuity at scale, and the adherence to best practices for effective management. “The decision to build the company around such a complex and multifaceted project was bold, but in Opsio and AWS we found partners that not only shared our vision but were committed fully to working with us to make it happen,” says Hedlund. “We are very happy with our experience so far, and excited about inventing more of the future together.”