Café Britt

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Café Britt
Type	Family and investor owned
Founded	1985
Headquarters	Santa Lucía de Heredia, Costa Rica
No. of locations	43 stores
Area served	Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Curacao, St. Thomas
Key people	Steve Aronson (President) Pablo Vargas (General Manager)
Industry	Roaster of gourmet coffee; specialty producer of premium tropical products; coffee-related tour operator
Products	Costa Rican and Peruvian coffees and chocolates, nuts, candies, locally made gifts and specialty products
Revenue	$58 million
Employees	800
Website	cafebritt.com

Café Britt is a Costa Rica-based roaster of high-mountain arabica coffees and maker of chocolates, candies and speciality food and beverage items.

It sells these products, along with locally produced arts, crafts and gift items, on its website and in the 43 stores it owns and operates in Costa Rica, Perú, Chile, Curacao and St. Thomas. Café Britt also creates and sponsors coffee-related tourism and education in Costa Rica.

1 History
2 Tourism
3 Expansion
4 References
5 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] Tourism

In 1991 Café Britt became the first Costa Rican company to combine coffee and 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.

[edit] Expansion

Today, the company employs nearly 800 people. Many of the 43 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 and the Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in Chile. Its coffee-roasting and chocolate-making operations are based in Costa Rica and Peru.

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.