Our time in Costa Rica has come to an end and although I am so sad to leave, I am beyond grateful for the experiences, knowledge, and friends I have made on this trip. Through out this trip, we learned about all different steps and aspects of the supply chain through all of Costa Rica’s main exports. My teams topic was design and launch which is more relevant towards the end of the supply chain, but still can be brought to use in the beginning.

Farms

Almost all of the farms we visited were organic and practiced sustainability when they were producing their products. Companies can intertwine this into their marketing to show that the products they produce don’t utilize any pesticides, like the banana and pineapple plantations. Or how they use water powered machines like Doka. If these companies make this known to the consumer, it can set them apart from their competition and make it more likely for conscientious consumers to purchase from them knowing they value these initiatives. They can also market their products like all the plantations did by giving tours to people and show them how the product is made.

Processing Mills/Exporting

A lot of the plantations produced intermediate goods, like Doka. They would produce the coffee bean and then would send it off to places like Britt who would roast the bean and send it off to the customers. For the design aspect, Doka doesn’t have to worry about marketing to the final consumer but they can make efforts to market to their middle man, Britt. They get business through the roasters buying their bean. If Doka can find strategies to set themselves apart and gain loyalty from roasters, they can gain more reach.

Roasters/Retail/Cafe

Britt specifically knew how to get their target audience reeled in with the retail. They filled their stores to capacity and always put them where they knew tourists would be such as airports and hotels. They also have representatives getting costumers to try the coffee.

Consumers

As I said above, knowing your target audience when you are marketing a product is so important. Britt knows that their target audience is tourists. Britt uses funny and engaging actors on their tours to keep costumers excited. They also promote their coffee using influencers, bloggers, and athletes to review the coffee. Britt also uses e-commerce/online stores to expand their audiences. They use the tours and the tourist locations to draw people in and then once tourists.