Today, we had a later start and an earlier finish to our day, so we had a load of free time for us. We started the day at about 9:30 heading to a lesson on the history of chocolate and a chocolate tasting at Sibu Chocolate, a farm for chocolates. The presenter was hilarious, he would mix in the history of chocolate while making fun of things and places like Switzerland (If you know, you know :)). After, we had a lunch at Riverside, they are EXTREMELY SUSTAINABLE. Then we headed over to the University to learn about ecotourism by our instructor Ana Maria Vega Chavarria. We gave mini presentations on hotspots for tourism in the class, it was unexpectedly fun. After, the “school day” was over, some of us went out to go play basketball at a park. Terrible idea. It was raining cats and dogs when we started, but in the middle of the game, it was raining bigger cats and dogs (kind of like a monsoon). The entire court was flooded. Everybody was slipping everywhere. But we didn’t quit, we played until the game was over and then headed out.☔️ At last, we had dinner and now I am righting this blog :).
Digging deeper to our chocolate lesson, it showed a lot of similarities to our previous tours of coffee. First of all, both have farmers or workers who are from other countries. They have workers mainly from Nicaragua. They also treat their workers with much care. For example, the coffee tours presented to us that they allow their workers and families to stay cost free, and the chocolate tour presented that they helped a Nicaraguan worker get their correct paperwork so that they could work at the farm. The speaker today also stated that he likes having immigrant workers and encourages it which I love. Another comparison for both is their amazing sense of sustainability, from what I heard through the tours, none of their “wastes” go to waste (pun was definitely intended). For example, at the chocolate farm, in order for chocolate to not melt into your hands they extract the cocoa butter and replace it with fat, the unused cocoa butter is then used to make another type of chocolate, white chocolate. Instead of wasting the cocoa butter, they found out a way to benefit themselves. Something else that they do is they are willing to pay the extra cost in more expensive boxes so that they don’t have to use plastic in their boxes. With the coffee farms, they use a coffee receiving machine that only uses water and not electricity. Lastly, they both have a similar process in starting as a bean and then having to roast.
A big risk towards the supply chain of the chocolate supply is climate change. Obviously due to this, the crops will be unpredictable in how much they will be able to produce and how they quality will be. With these being uncertain, it is almost a sure thing that costs will increase, with costs increasing that forces prices to increase for the consumer. This will have the chance of less people purchasing chocolates. Also, farmers don’t believe they are getting the pay, so they will not produce. Another risk/difficulty is transportation. Transportation is expensive. They can’t use the cheaper option of trains because the chocolate will melt, so they have top use the more expensive option of the plane.
Our lunch today introduced us to a farm to table concept of their restaurant. We were able to take a tour of their farm in the back of the restaurant, when I say that it was impressive, I mean it was incredibly impressive. They run off of a cycle that goes table to compost to farm. This is really cool to me because back in the United States, I don’t believe that I have ever had the experience of one. This way of going from farm to table is impressive. Their owner stated that almost all of the food that they have are from that farm. Actually, not only the food, even the tables and counters which is incredible! When we toured the garden, you could smell the leaves and they would taste like different products that they would put into their pizzas and drinks, like oregano and mint. Overall, it was an amazing thing to see this and put into action by eating their amazing pizza.
From our tours of Britt, Riverside, and Sibo they share a number of similarities. They all care about sustainability. They all have their own unique ways of not wasting much or any of their resources. Also, they all show incredible attention to detain during their production process and wanting to produce high quality products, all while minimizing their footprint on the environment. Touring companies like these make you realize why Costa Rica is so incredibly sustainable and world leader. It also shows how we can learn from even these smaller countries.
Below are a couple of pictures of the farm that the Riverside Pizzeria has to make their products.
