Café Britt

Café Britt

File:Cafe Britt 09 2009 7425.JPG
Company type	Family and investor owned
Industry	Café Brittis a gourmet coffee roaster and high end chocolate manufacturer from Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico.
Founded	1985
Headquarters	Mercedes Norte, Heredia , Costa Rica
Number of locations	60 Stores
Area served	Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, United States, Curaçao, St. Thomas, Antigua & Barbuda Island
Key people	Phillippe Aronson (President) Pablo Vargas (CEO)
Products	Costa Rican and Peruvian coffees and chocolates, nuts, candies, locally made gifts and specialty products
Revenue	$60 million
Number of employees	875
Website	cafebritt.com

Café Britt is a gourmet coffee roaster and high end chocolate manufacturer from Costa Rica, Peru, and Mexico, and sells its different coffee varieties at local supermarkets. It also sells its coffee products and candies along with locally produced arts, crafts and gift items, on its website and in the 60 stores it owns and operates in Costa Rica, Perú, Chile, United States, Curaçao, Antigua & Barbuda Island and St. Thomas. Café Britt also creates and sponsors coffee-related tourism and education in Costa Rica.

History

New York coffee broker Steve Aronson founded the company in 1985 to market roasted Costa Rican coffees to the domestic Costa Rican market. At the time, the country’s coffee-industry regulations required that all of the best coffee be exported, unroasted, to foreign markets. Britt earned recognition as an industry pioneer by lobbying for reforms to allow some of the best coffee to be roasted and sold locally.

The company scored early success in marketing its coffees to upscale Costa Rican hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. Café Britt is known as one of Costa Rica’s first companies to create and actively market its coffees on the Internet. Its website has won numerous industry awards.

Tourism

In 1991 Café Britt became the first Costa Rican company to combine coffee with tourism. Its CoffeeTour, a play staged in its own coffee plantation, traces coffee’s production cycle. Some 50,000 people take the tour each year. More technically oriented versions of the tour have been developed for visiting coffee experts or serious amateurs.

Britt’s incursion into tourism helped bring about expansion of its retail sales business. The success of its on-site coffee-and-gift store lead to additional stores nationwide and web-based sales of Costa Rican arts and crafts.

Expansion

Cafe Britt Shop store at Juan Santamaria International Airport.

Today, the company employs nearly 900 people. Many of the 60 coffee-and-gift stores it owns and operates are located in international airports, including the Juan Santamaría International Airport in Costa Rica, the Jorge Chavez International Airport in Perú, the Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in Chile and Miami International Airport in the United States. Its coffee-roasting and chocolate-making operations are based in Costa Rica and Peru.

Café Britt also developed into the souvenir business by adding a corner in each of their stores dedicated to souvenir items. These include mugs, plates and other types of gadgets. Each country now has its own line of products. Three different designs appear in stores: a yellow line, a white line and a hand painted line.

The company’s core value as a country-of-origin producer with strong local identity remains a guiding principle as it continues to expand and export its business model. Café Britt is a patron of the arts and a partner in community development. It pays fair prices to local farmers who produce consistently high-quality coffee.

See also

• Coffee production in Costa Rica
• Economy of Costa Rica
• Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
• Juan Valdez Cafe
• Juan Valdez drinks Costa Rican coffee

References

• About Café Britt, Café Britt official site.
• The Moody Report
• América Economía Template:Es icon
• La Nación newspaper, Template:Es icon
• Coffee & Tea Trade Journal

External links

• Official site
• Cafe Britt Gourmet Coffee Reviews by Consumers