After touring both Doka and Café Britt, I am able to see some clear differences in the way each company makes their product and their position within the supply chain. It seems that these differences correlate with each company’s primary customers as well. For example, Café Britt is very popular with tourists, and Ticos tend to not drink the coffee. This is most likely because Café Britt does not entirely focus on the growing and producing of their coffee, but is instead more focused on roasting and selling. Their brand is also oriented towards other concepts, such as chocolate, travel souvenirs, bakeries, and foreign locations. Café Britt has opened stores in several countries within Latin America, and roasts coffee from that country to sell at the location. Thus, because they aren’t focused on selling coffee in Costa Rica, but rather a variety of coffee-themed goods throughout Latin America, Ticos invest in other brands.

Within the supply chain, Café Britt fits the manufacturer role. They don’t grow their own coffee, nor do they produce their chocolates, bags and travel souvenirs. Instead, they source these from suppliers, and then supply their locations with the goods sourced or manufactured. For example, they source their coffee from farms, and then roast and package the coffee to sell. In other countries, they source coffee from there to roast, package and sell. They then sell products directly to customers from their stores within airports throughout Latin America. About 10% of coffee sales are from Café Britt’s website, where they ship throughout the U.S. from a Miami warehouse.

Doka seems to take on multiple roles within the supply chain. They supply their own coffee from their 32 farms, then roast, package and sell it as Doka Coffee.  They’re the supplier’s supplier, the supplier, and the manufacturer. They also sell coffee to companies like Starbucks and Costco, which then package and sell their own brand of coffee. In this case, they are solely the supplier’s supplier and the supplier.

In relation to making, Café Britt creates special products for each store location’s country. For example, for their Colombia location, they roast, package and sell Colombian-grown coffee. They also design and make other products like chocolates that are special to this location. Because they make products that are country-oriented, they are successful in all of their locations throughout Latin America as tourists buy into the brand of that specific country. Though the approach may seem a bit like a gimmick, it is quite smart to change their branding to appeal to a much broader clientele. If I had to do it differently, I would sell more food items (chocolate, coffee, etc.) and less souvenirs. This would give more of a coffee company appearance rather than an overall tourist company.