Sweet like sugaaaaaa....

After waking up to the sound of rain minus the angry birds this morning, I can officially say that I survived our last night with no air conditioning. I must admit it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, but it definitely makes me appreciate air conditioning that much more. We packed up our stuff and headed over to the main campus for breakfast. Yes, I got some more of that delicious yogurt. Thanks to Sonny we also got to try a banana that came straight from their banana farms. After breakfast we left EARTH and headed to a house where sugar cane, coffee, and macadamia nuts use to be produced. This house was on our way back to San Jose. We were able to see a beautiful church that was also located on the property. The view from the house was also amazing. It was overlooking the city below it and was filled with trees and a river. We were also able to see how macadamia nuts were harvested. They no longer produce coffee or macadamia nuts because it was no longer cost effective for them to continue producing those crops. They even let us taste some fresh macadamia nuts. After viewing how the macadamia nuts were harvested, we were shown a presentation on the sugar cane that they harvest at their various farms. This company has several farms around their local community and they produce sugar cane that is shipped to various countries across the world. They even told us that we could find their products in our local Whole Foods store. However, we will pay a pretty penny for their sugar cane. If we would purchase their sugar cane from Whole Foods, it would cost us between 8-9 dollars for around a pound of sugar. The reason the price is so high is because they sell their sugar cane to a manufacture that packages and sells the sugar to local stores. They typically sell their sugar to the manufacture for about 1.50-2 dollars per pound. That is a serious mark up. However, there is a serious demand for this product because this sugar cane producer is one of a couple of sugar cane producers that produces organic sugar cane in the world. Considering organic products have become very popular in recent years. After we went to lunch at a very local place. When I say very local, I mean that it was basically in a house, but they had a nice deck that overlooked the valley and they served food there. The view was beautiful as well even though we were stuck in the middle of a cloud...that proves how high up we were! After lunch, we were headed to Cartago to tour a company called Vitec. This company produces camera products for photography and broadcasting companies. Companies like National Geographic and even ESPN use their products. We were shown a presentation from the president of the company for the Costa Rica location. He explained to us how their company operates and the many different locations that they have across the globe. Their factory mainly produce two different types of products for cameras that were used in broadcasting. They did produce some products that were used in photography, but most of their products were produced for broadcasting purposes. The thing that I found so impressive about that his company was how incredibly efficient they were. They had boards at every station of their plant that allowed all team members to know what problems they may have incurred and the progress that they were making. They also have meetings on a regular basis to make sure that all members know exactly what is going on. I think that these two specific actions benefit their company in many ways. After the tour we stopped at the church that is located in Cartago. This church is probably the largest church that I have seen in my life. Even though I saw this church the last time that I was in Costa Rica, it was still extremely beautiful. Every year millions of people make a pilgrimage to this church on August 2nd. Fernando told us that usually if it falls on a weekend that people will walk to this church from all over Costa Rica. After this stop, we were headed back to San Jose. It was so nice to be headed back to the Tryp Sabana Hotel. I am pretty excited to be back in San Jose. Tomorrow we will be touring two different businesses in San Jose.

Side note... Chris just broke him and Bennett's toilet... Poor Bennett :(

Dr. Lanier asked us today to explain some of the concepts of supply and demand after visiting the sugar plantation, Assukar, and Vitech, the video product manufacturer. In regards to Assukar, the demand for organic sugar cane is constantly growing, but the supply is limited because there are very few suppliers. Assukar has the ability to raise their prices if they would feel the need to because the demand is so high. In regards to Vitech, most of their higher priced items are top of the line and typically there is usually a demand for those specific products. However, their smaller products are typically do not have as much of a demand. This is why the company makes sure that they constantly have their smaller products in stock because if they aren't in stock then consumers will use similar products from other sellers. That means that Vitec would lose the sale because they worked purchase a similar product from one of their competitors.