Today we visited Sibo, a chocolate Company, where we learned about the history of chocolate and their company. Throughout the explanation of its history, we learned that coffee and chocolate are fairly similar. Chocolate is native to Costa Rica, while coffee is native to Africa yet the production for each of those products is the opposite of its native location. Both coffee and chocolate have extensive histories in which the recipe was changed many times and both products have many variants (different coffee blends and different purities of cocoa in chocolate). However, there are some unique challenges when it comes to the supply chain of chocolate. Sibo specifically faces struggles with training people to understand the process of creating chocolate the right way. It is a hard process to learn and takes awhile to be taught properly. Once someone is taught, they need to keep that worker around, so that person needs to be paid well and compensated fairly in order to maintain the stability of the business.

Sibo and Britt are similar in many ways including the fact that they do not grow their products themselves. They both buy crops from Costa Rican plantations and use the products they buy to diversify their products. For example, Britt makes multiple different blends of coffee that can attract a wide variety of consumers. Similarly, Sibo makes all different types of chocolate that are purer and less pure than others which also attracts a wider variety of consumers. They also both just started to expand into the United States and are working on their marketing there. They both have a very similar company layout in which they design their product, sell it independently through their company online (and in some stores), and are starting expansion and in need of marketing assistance.

If I were to choose a crop to start my business around, I would choose bananas. Bananas seem to have the safest conditions for picking which makes it appealing to workers in comparison to other crops and would be easier for me to find employees. Additionally, bananas are one of the most exported crops in Costa Rica which means there is a lot of room for success in the market. My final reason for my choice is that I love bananas. They are a versatile fruit so I could make multiple products out of them for even more profit. And finally, whenever I’m hungry I’ll have fresh bananas at hand!