Today, we had the opportunity to tour Cafe Britt and learn about the roasting and processing of coffee beans. The coffee sold at Cafe Britt is gourmet, which means it is much more expensive than the average brand and most ticos will not buy it. My host mother confirmed this when she said that she prefers other brands due to their cheaper price, even though coffee from Cafe Britt tastes better. Even though coffee is a popular product chocolate is actually Cafe Britt’s most popular product.

This company fits into the supply chain because it is a supplier, producer, and seller of coffee. It just recently became a supplier when it bought Doka in the last year. It has been a producer and seller of coffee for years now. One of the main places its coffee is sold is the airport and online. We also found out that Cafe Britt has distributors in Curaçao, Panama, Mexico, and Miami. I think one of the main reasons this company is so successful is because of its marketing. During the tour, the actors were very funny, educational, and engaging, which allowed us to be more enticed by the product. I also felt that they transitioned well from the tour to talking about us going to buy items at the gift shop.

Cafe Britt’s strategies for sourcing have allowed them to be very successful. One of these strategies is having several coffee plantations that they source from. This means that if one plantation has a disease or goes through problems, its entire coffee supply will not be jeopardized. Also, we asked them about where they sourced their water and they did not directly answer that question. But they did talk about how they would be switching out the process at Doka to not include a wet mill. I assumed they were doing this to save money and maybe increase efficiency at Doka.

Another interesting thing that I was able to learn today was about Costa Rica’s water resources by talking to agronomist engineer Andres Hernandez. I had asked him about the sewer systems in Costa Rica since I noticed many of the streams in the area were very brown, and I had heard that sewage poured directly into the creeks. He told me that only 1-2% of the water in sewer systems in Costa Rica is treated in sewage plants and the rest goes directly into the creeks. He also stated that they were working to get this number up to around 30% in the next few years but they were having problems gaining support. Pittsburgh has similar problems to Costa Rica, even though our sewer systems are separate and the wastewater is treated because our systems were not built to handle the current population like Costa Rica. That is why we have problems with sewage going into our rivers during heavy rains since our treatment plants can’t handle the volume of water in the sewers. I believe, though, that if the citizens take charge and press the government to fix the issues we are having with this infrastructure, it can be fixed.