Today we toured Café Britt, a coffee roasting company built around marketing with tourists. We learned about how they make the majority of their money through sales in airports and hotels. Their business model incorporates the culture of the country that they exist in, as Café Britts in Costa Rica will have no resemblance to one in Perú. I believe that locals don’t drink it because they don’t need the gourmet coffee that Café Britt supplies. The Ticos have no need to spend more than twice what they normally do on coffee, especially as they normally prepare it with lots of milk and sugar.
Marketing and tourism are Café Britts largest targets and these work towards a product that isn’t anywhere near what you would expect! T-shirts and other souvenirs make up the most popular portion of Café Britt products as they are sold in airports and hotels all around Central and South America. I believe that their marketing system is ingenious, they take every opportunity they can find to create customers. They pioneered the coffee tour, use social media and influencers, and they are constantly open to new ideas on how to reach more people!
As I said earlier Café Britt is a roasting company, which differs greatly from Doka which we toured yesterday. Doka is a producer of green coffee beans, which are known as the golden bean, and are exported unroasted to roasting companies. Café Britt will evaluate and roast all of their coffee and export it to all of their buyers.
My project topic for this trip is sourcing, which includes where these businesses get anything they need. Café Britt has over 4000 different plantations all over Costa Rica that they buy coffee from to make their signature flavors! Other than that, with the use of technology from other countries, they do everything else in exporting roasted beans!
