Throughout our two weeks in Costa Rica I have learned a plethora of information regarding the coffee supply chain. But while on most of our trips I paid special attention the management of each of the parts of the supply chain since management was my groups focus. While at coffee farms, the first step in the coffee supply chain, I was able to learn a lot about how these farms were managed. I assumed that coffee pickers were employees of the coffee farms, and almost immediately I found out that I was wrong. Farmers are typically paid by per cauella, the standard coffee measurement in Costa Rica. After I learned more about the taxes these farms need to pay this began to make sense. Every Costa Rican employer is required to pay an additional 66% of the salaries they pay out back to the government which is why pickers aren’t full time employees. To me this makes sense and I can now better understand the relationship between coffee pickers and the coffee farm management.

Initially I assumed that many of these farms kept a lot of their product in Costa Rica and the coffee they exported was of the same quality. Quickly I found this ideal to be false. After visiting multiple wet mills I found that they keep the coffee beans that float in Costa Rica and export all of the beans that sink, the higher quality beans. After hearing how good Costa Rican coffee is I just assumed they kept a significant portion of their quality coffee in the country. Since milling companies can make more money from foreign investors I now understand why their management is more prone to export quality coffee while selling lower quality coffee to local Ticos.

Before visiting any coffee roasters I thought that green beans were always sent out of the country to be roasted, I quickly found out this wasn’t the case. Green beans are considered a raw material and cant be sold for a high cost since there are so many farms and mills offering almost identical product. When Costa Rican companies decide to produce roasted coffee they have to opportunity to make much more money since the roasted coffee is considered an added value product. This also gives companies the ability to create a brand allowing them to become more recognizable and desirable. Its clear that many companies that used to exclusively farm or mill coffee are beginning to roast some of their coffee so they can have more control over their pricing. This management decision has allowed many coffee roasters such as Britt or Coopedota to be extremely successful both in Costa Rica and abroad.

While in Costa Rica we’ve visited a lot of coffee tour gift shops, all of them have many similarities but there is one major connection they all share. All of the stores are expertly designed to resemble the culture of Costa Rica to allow visitors to feel like they are buying an authentic product. The master of this is Britt. Their main goals were to focus on selling coffee as well as many other goods to tourists world wide, not just in Costa Rica. Initially I didn’t understand how much thought went into the packaging and presentation of coffee but after listening to one of their lectures I realized that everything in those gift shops were designed to get tourists to think they are buying a pure and authentic Costa Rican product even if the coffee isn’t grown in Costa Rica. After listening to the presentation at Britt I was able to appreciate the immense amount of precision and science that goes into the retail stores portion of the supply chain.

Finally at the last step in the supply chain there are the customers, me! I taste tested coffee from all of the tours we went on and found out I didn’t necessarily buy the coffee because it was my favorite but because of other reasons. I bought a bag of coffee from Life Monteverde because I felt that their small family coffee farm was unique and I bought a bag of coffee from Coopedota because their coffee was carbon neutral and rainforest certified. I learned that ultimately its not the best product that gets sold its the one with the best story. For me its really interesting to reflect on my own position in the coffee supply chain after studying it for the past two weeks and I can fully see how all of the steps in the supply chain relate to each other and to management.