You are Valeria Solís, and today, 6 April 2026, is your first day as chief marketing officer of Café Cordillera in Heredia, Costa Rica. The board gives you four quarters to relaunch Cordillera Verde, its flagship coffee. Before you spend a colón, you have to decide what the brand will stand for.
The situation
Two documents sit on your desk. The first is the sourcing audit: every kilogram of green coffee in Cordillera Verde comes from certified cooperatives in the Tarrazú highlands, and the premium paid to those farmers above the reference price has been verified for seven years running. The second is the quarterly brand tracker: only 31% of Costa Rican coffee buyers recognise Cordillera Verde, against 58% for the multinational that launched a campaign called Planet Positive eleven weeks ago. On sustainability perception, scored 0 to 100, Cordillera Verde gets a 38.
Planet Positive took four points of category share in its first quarter, on sourcing that certifies a minority of the multinational's volume. Meanwhile Cordillera Verde's price premium over private label has fallen from 35% in 2023 to 22% today: shoppers have traded down and the trade has narrowed the gap to keep them.
Café Cordillera turned over CRC 9,600 million in 2025, at a contribution margin of 22.0%. The board's mandate has one non-negotiable condition: that margin may not fall below 18%. Your budget for the year, repositioning, campaign and media, is CRC 480 million. If nothing changes, the board has said what happens: Cordillera Verde is repositioned downmarket as a fighter brand against private label, and the premium does not come back. You come from relaunching a dairy brand that held its price against private label, but you have never worked in coffee.