Today, we attended a very interesting, interactive chocolate tasting. We tried some pretty cool flavors and ended up emptying our pockets in the gift shop. The most compelling thing about Sibö is the fact that it sustainable in its production and packaging, and you are eating the real thing, no extra ingredients, no chemicals involved. That is why I am willing to spend the extra money on this quality chocolate.

Some challenges that are faced in the organic coffee supply chain are no different than coffee or any other crop we learned about: prolonged dry seasons and less rainfall, pests and diseases, and teaching farmers how to ferment and store the cacao carefully for best growing results. A challenge specific to Sibö that they talked about today was getting people to find out about the small company and expand its markets worldwide, which could be done with a marketer, social media, and even the tours like the once we had today.

Although Britt is a large company and Sibö is a smaller one, both companies still try to produce good quality chocolate in a sustainable way, and push to get their product to the world. Britt clearly is much larger and is competition to Sibö, which is why Sibö is trying to focus on niche locations where these larger companies are not selling to. They also try to maintain what makes them special: the authenticity of the brand, the fact that they are creating sustainable product out of the goodness of their heart, and the willingness to share the true history behind the making of chocolate for all to enjoy.

I would say that both coffee and chocolate are huge things that farmers rely on to make money, and are a big part of the supply chain in tropical countries like this. They also gain a lot of tourist attraction in small countries like Costa Rica, allowing them to make money off tourism in these fields.

Now, after visiting all the places we went to, if I were to export one tropical crop product, it would be chocolate. I feel like the world is on a health-kick right now, and I want to make chocolate natural again and make it like how it was, with the least amount of ingredients possible. I know I for one would choose that over something with all of these added products, so I think it would be a fun project to take on. And I would get to eat (I mean taste test) chocolate any time I wanted.