Monday, June 9, 2008
Coffee, tres
Ever since we visited the Cafe Britt coffee facilities I have been noticing the logo or Cafe Britt products everywhere we go. I figured that was typical in the city or in bigger tourist locations. However I was somewhat suprised at how much I spotted the Cafe Britt brand in even some of the smaller, less populated locations that we visited. Even today for example, we were eating lunch at a small privately owned cafe in Puerto Viejo, a small beach town on the Caribbean coast, and the Cafe Britt brand was everywhere. Even when they gave us to-go cups for our juices they were Cafe Britt cups. It must be really hard for smaller coffee farmers to get their products on the market without the help of a corporate giant such as Cafe Britt. And I am sure that Cafe Britt does not pay the small farmers that they get some of their coffee from a good price.
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1 comment:
wow..
I wonder why you think that Cafe Britt is a corporate giant??
Maybe because we market in all the places where visitors to Costa RIca go??
Maybe because Costa Ricans are proud to serve our coffee??
Our coffee comes from the growers who produce the finest coffee in the country..and.. instead of selling the coffee in green to the international market where the bulk of the money goes abroad, we have applied these marketing techniques in the Costa Rican market and have created about 500 jobs in the process.
Many of the architects, marketing people, logistics experts, factory workers, actors, accountants, customer service reps that work in Britt Coffee are sons and daughters of coffee growers.. except they have studied in school and now have jobs that pay much better than working in the field.
AND these jobs are in a world class coffee company that is based in Costa Rica..!! not a "gourmet roaster" in Seattle..
The whole purpose of the exercise is to roast and pack the finest coffees according to international standards (that is why four seasons uses Cafe Britt instead of some US gourmet brand) and market them in Costa Rica.
That way.. we can pay the best prices in the country for the best coffees and create value locally.
Being a farmer is different than being a distributor or a manufacturer.. just like being a composer is different than being a musician or building a house is different than being an interior decorator.
Think about this...would you rather keep people down on the farm.. being picturesque and selling raw coffee abroad and eking out a living or would you rather allow their daughters to become actors if they wish and actually sell the coffee as a roasted product that can compete with the best??
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