Today we visited both Café Britt and Doka. Both have different places among the supply chain and have very different target markets for their products. While Doka is mostly a supplier for companies that roast coffee, Café Britt roasts coffee but does not produce the raw cherries, making them a manufacturer/distributor. Both are successful in their own respective ways, using different innovation strategies to continue to be successful.

When we visited Doka. They helped us understand that they are a supplier of raw árabe coffee beans. Árabe is one type of coffee plant, favored in Costa Rica as it is a higher quality bean. They then export them to manufacturers who will roast the coffee.

Comparing this to Café Britt who buy the coffee from various farms and simply roast it. Café Britt is a manufacturer/ Distributor of coffee. They market themselves as a high-quality coffee distributor. This makes their coffee very expensive and high end. In fact, they didn’t even allow Costa Ricans to buy their coffee prior to 1985. The fact that it is highly priced and the availability of cheaper alternatives makes their coffee very unpopular with the Ticos. Both of these companies are very successful. For much of the same reason. They continually innovate.

Doka’s organic form of innovation, to suit open markets have helped them become successful. Per example, they use the fact they harvest so many beans to their advantage. The larger crop yield means they have more of the genetically mutated “Peabody” beans, which are generally sweeter, to generate a roast of coffee containing exclusively those mutated beans. Most farms cannot afford to do this as they yield too few of the “Peabody” beans. According to our guide, Doka is one of few companies to produce the “Peabody” blend. Thus they used their pre-existing advantages to help inform their innovation process.

Comparing how Caffé Britt and Doka innovate helps us understand their business strategy. Café Britt is always trying to innovate. They have a whole department dedicated to innovating new products and searching for new markets. Compared to Dokas more organic style of innovation this may seem rather odd. However, once you consider that Café Britt is a manufacturer/ distributor this makes sense. They have no true advantages other than their brand. They don’t produce anything themselves so their potential markets are limited by their suppliers. They, therefore, have to be constantly innovating in order to enter already established markets. This is a key difference between Café Britt and Doka.

Overall both of these companies find success due to their innovation. However, they innovate quite differently. To me at least, this makes sense as they occupy different roles in the supply chain, Doka is a supplier, while Café Britt is a manufacturer/ distributor. Therefore how they innovate and design is limited by their position in the supply chain. Both innovation techniques work well. I look forward to seeing how other companies innovate and design their products in the coming days.