Chocolate and coffee are obviously two major exports of Costa Rica. As seen with Café Britt, it proves very successful for businesses when the two commodities are marketed together, especially towards tourists. This may be because the high quality coffee and chocolate sold by companies by Café Britt are considered gourmet delicacies, which heightens their appeal towards foreigners. Interestingly, as the chocolate artisans at Sibú pointed out, there was somewhat of a swapping between the coffee and cacao crops. Although the cacao tree is native to Costa Rica, the chocolate industry has grown greater in parts of Africa, and although the coffee plant was native to Ethiopia, the coffee industry has become a greater part of Costa Rica’s economy.
One challenge in the chocolate supply chain, at least for Sibú, is sourcing labor, and keeping the same workers employed at the company after they have been trained in the European gourmet chocolate making process. Another challenge for Sibú, being a small company, is competing with bigger names in the chocolate industry such as Britt, that have essentially monopolized chocolate stores in large commercial spaces like airports. To combat this, Sibú has focused on establishing franchises in smaller cafes and shops to maintain the artisan feeling as an edge for their company. Along with this points, Sibú also faces the challenge of getting their name out to the chocolate industry in the United States when competing with names like Nestle and Lindt.
A major common point between Sibú and Britt is their approach in marketing their products as artisan and/or gourmet delicacies towards tourists. They are also both further down in the supply chain, when compared to companies like Doka. Sibú and Britt are not suppliers (growers) of their products, rather they are manufacturers. Both source coffee and cacao beans from plantations all over Costa Rica, and then do they start the “make” part in the supply chain.
If I were to export a Costa Rican tropical crop product, I would choose either coffee or chocolate as opposed to pineapples and bananas. While the supply chains of coffee and chocolate are more complex than those of pineapples and bananas, there is more creativity involved in the making process. For example, I would have more freedom to market several new flavors/roasts of coffee year round, or I could experiment with almost infinite designs and flavors of chocolate (example: lime, basil, cinnamon, like we tried today at Sibú), instead of just exporting pineapples and bananas year round without much creativity or freedom in the process.
