Today we visited Café Britt to learn about their roasting and marketing process. It is an extremely popular spot for tourist from all over the world. I even saw all their TripAdvisor rewards on the wall at one point during our tour. However, most locals don’t drink coffee from Café Britt. I think it is because the company doesn’t cater to the domestic market. During our marketing presentation, our speaker talked about what the company learned during the pandemic and he said the main thing was that they realized they can’t disregard their domestic costumers. The places that they make their coffee available to others is places that you would find foreigners/tourists.

Café Britt in comparison to Doka can be described as they are each others other half. Doka focuses on the first half of the supply chain process with make, source, and delivery. Café Britt, on the other hand, focuses on service, design, and launch. Doka is more about producing that intermediate good that is sent off to places like Café Britt to be distributed and advertised.

I would say the main thing that makes Café Britt successful is their large amount of brand awareness and costumer loyalty. They not only draw tourist in with the theatrical element of the tour, but they also strategically sell their coffee in the main locations that tourists are going to be, such as airports and hotels. So, they have the attractiveness of the tour bringing in revenue and awareness for their company, but also the actually coffee you can purchase. And another major element is the fact that you can order the coffee online. This gives the opportunity for costumers in the foreign market to keep purchasing “that coffee they loved so much in Costa Rica.” Though they do have a strategy, they also don’t have any competitors to their scale in their market and are competing with much smaller companies so Café Britt automatically has an advantage over them. Also, the expertise of the workers that Café Britt may have can play a big role in the advantage they have over their competitors, even if they are small. They are always trying to improve and diversify their coffee. During the presentation, the speaker said that they make 5-10 new blends of coffee each year, which also allows them to maintain that gap between them and the competitors. They also had unique and beautiful bag designs.

One thing, however, I wish was talked about during the presentation was how they use the elements of their company that are different from their competitors in their marketing. Like, what makes Café Britt special.

That’s all for today. By the time I see you again, blog, I will be in Monteverde! Adios!