We went on two coffee tours today, one of them at the Doka Estate coffee plantation and the other at a roasting site and visitor center of Cafe Britt. The two companies serve different roles in the coffee supply chain. Doka primarily acts as a supplier, growing coffee plants and exporting the green harvested coffee beans to other companies to be roasted and sold to consumers. Cafe Britt fills a different role in the supply chain, sourcing green coffee beans from a network of independent small farms which Britt then roasts and sells to customers or other companies. Cafe Britt has taken an innovative approach to the coffee business and has been able to compete internationally by developing a reputation as a high quality brand and socially conscious company. 

Cafe Britt’s approach to the delivery of its products is related to how the compound chooses to source and advertise their products. Cafe Britt has expanded internationally in recent years, and strives to source all the materials in the products it sells from the country the product is being sold in. This helps to reduce shipping costs as the company spends very little on importing goods between countries and also avoids the paperwork related to imports and exports, which can be an exhaustive and time consuming chore. On the other side of the delivery process, Cafe Britt eases the process by trying to come to the consumer. They seek out prime locations in airports that people are likely to pass by when deciding which countries to expand to. This allows Britt to more effectively deliver their product to the end user.

We did not hear Cafe Britt explicitly discuss how they deliver products from factories to storefronts, but I would assume they hire trucking companies and freight or cargo shipping companies ass needed to get their products where they need to be. Given their goal of being carbon neutral, Cafe Britt could make their delivery process more sustainable in the future by choosing to have products be delivered by electric or hybrid vehicles when truck-sized electric vehicles become more practical. Overall, I was impressed by the innovation Cafe Britt showed in all aspects of its business model and enjoyed learning about the tactics they have used to be successful.