Today, we were able to experience the Cafe Britt Coffee Tour and learn about a new part of the coffee supply chain: the roasting process. In addition to walking through the factory itself, we sat in on a lecture where we learned about Cafe Britt’s business model, particularly its marketing tactics.
I was intrigued to learn more about Cafe Britt’s different market segments. Although it at first surprised me that most Ticos don’t drink Cafe Britt’s coffee products, after experiencing the tour and lecture today, I think that there are many potential explanations for this. Today, we learned that Cafe Britt’s coffee is marketed as a high-end, gourmet, expensive product. Knowing this, it makes sense to me that the consumption of Cafe Britt’s products is rare in Costa Rica, as the same goes for any high-end product in the US; if something is high-end, it is likely that it is expensive, and thus likely that less people will be able to afford it. In addition, one of Cafe Britt’s main segments is tourism, and it is difficult for them to gain market value amongst their own country’s residents by presenting themselves as a tourism/souvenir brand. Lastly, during the lecture today, it was mentioned that Cafe Britt has strayed away from grandiose marketing techniques like television and billboards. While it was explained that this is done with the intention of maintaining their reputation as a high-end, gourmet coffee brand, I think that this also ends up contributing to more Ticos forgetting about and thus refraining from buying the Cafe Britt brand.
Cafe Britt’s most popular product has recently become chocolate–not coffee–due to the fact that this is where they have started to direct more of their marketing efforts. I believe that this is because they know that their work is already done in establishing themselves as having a good reputation within the coffee industry. In addition, I think that this could be partially due to the fact that they focus their attention on perfecting the quality–as opposed to the quantity–of their coffee products.
Cafe Britt plays a different role from Doka in the global supply chain; while Doka is a coffee supplier, Cafe Britt primarily serves as a coffee roaster. While Doka sells its beans to other coffee shops for them to then sell it under their own respective brand names, Cafe Britt buys from local plantations and does the actual roasting–then it takes it a step further and determines marketing and branding strategies for its various products. This relates to my team’s project topic, sourcing; in addition to Cafe Britt sourcing its coffee beans from different coffee plantations in Costa Rica, it also sources its packaging and machinery from China. From a financial standpoint, I do agree with this approach. By sourcing the actual coffee beans from other plantations, as well as sourcing the resources needed to ship the containers of the product from an entirely different country, Cafe Britt allows itself to focus all of its efforts on ensuring the best possible customer experience with its products, thus raising its various products’ market value, increasing the likelihood of consumers buying Cafe Britt’s products, and ultimately bringing in more revenue for Cafe Britt.