Nikki Ditta, Plus3 Costa Rica Summer 2025
As I reflect on my entire trip, I’ve been able to see the industry, culture, and the environment, and its effects on shaping Costa Rica’s tropical agriculture industry. As I looked through the processes through a design and launch perspective, I noticed a few things that stuck out to me. Beginning with the farm, focusing on sustainable practices and branding all starts with having responsible sourcing and cultivation materials. In coffee specifically, farmers look for high quality coffee cherries, meaning they are bright red and weigh a lot when starting the washing process. Investing in machinery may not seem sustainable, but the layers of the coffee cherry are reused to fuel the machine or put into the water to wash the cherries. If the coffee is not of high quality, no company would be able to market and launch their product due to poor taste.
Next, moving onto the processing mills and exporter, marketing focuses more on the packaging aspects and logistics. Specifically, they focus on how the beans are processed through the machines, from washing, to drying, to storing them before being exported. All of this is important to watch over and maintain consistent as said before, high quality is important. As for step three, coffee roasters and retail stores/cafes, selling the product through branding and storytelling are what will catch customers’ attention. The factors that should be considered here are the roasting techniques and processes, which usually depend on how long the coffee beans will spin in the drum. From there, retailers should focus on the layout in which they display their coffee and products. If they provide background history about the coffee and promote the coffee, they are more likely to draw in customers.
Lastly, looking at customers, we need to know who to target market in order to be successful. Once discovering that, we can draw in customers through interaction with the brand such as tastings, experience, packaging, and loyalty rewards, and incentives. These factors help promote a successful launch and lead to loyal customers and high satisfaction. In addition to customizing coffee to their customer’s liking, we can also highlight sustainable practices such as packaging and processing. In all, it is not just important to promote the product, but the values behind it and what it means to the company, and how you can cater to your customers.
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