Café Britt

Café Britt

Type	Family and investor owned
Industry	Coffee roasting and chocolate manufacturing
Founded	1985
Headquarters	Mercedes Norte, Heredia, Costa Rica
Number of locations	92 Stores
Area served	Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, Chile, United States, Curaçao, St. Thomas, Antigua & Barbuda, New Caledonia.
Key people	Phillippe Aronson (President) Pablo Vargas (CEO)
Products	Costa Rican, Mexican and Peruvian coffees and chocolates, nuts, candies, gifts and specialty products
Revenue	$60 million
Number of employees	875
Website	cafebritt.com

Café Britt is a Costa Rican company that produces gourmet coffee, fine chocolate and specialty gift items. They have 92 gift stores in eight countries (in Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia and the United States) and an online store. They create and sponsor coffee-related tourism and education in Costa Rica.

The company employs nearly 1,000 people.^[1] Many of the 92 coffee-and-gift stores it owns and operates are located in international airports. Its coffee-roasting and chocolate-making operations are based in Costa Rica, Peru and Mexico.

History

New York coffee broker Steve Aronson founded the company in 1985 to market roasted Costa Rican coffees to the domestic market. At the time, the country's coffee-industry regulations required that all of the best coffee be exported, unroasted, to foreign markets. The company succeeded in marketing its coffees to Costa Rican hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. Café Britt also markets its coffees on the Internet.

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.

Gallery

A coffee plantation tour.
Cafe Britt store

External links

Official site

References