Production Enterprises Estabished by Expatriates

Success Found in Producing Goods

American entrepreneurs, some of whom were semi-retired, have established over the years in the country very large and profitable businesses. Working busily and enthusiastically at their own enterprises, they have inspired many of the local population to work harder to make money, to use new methods for increasing profits and to offer new products and services to a population that needed them. These men and women have acted as stimulating catalysts in the economic development of Costa Rica.

Here are a few examples which appeared in my book "Making Money in a Business of Your Own in Central America. The following brief accounts are of some that were established in Costa Rica.

Ice Cream

C.S. a Tulane University graduate in geology, who had served in the Army in the Panama Canal, bought second-hand equipment, shipped it to Costa Rica, and became the proud owner of a lucrative ice cream business. Years later, as others also began to sell ice cream, he sold the business and started making cold creams for facial use, a product which also proved profitable for him.

Chickens

A.T. a Cornell civil engineering graduate, passed through Costa Rica on his way back from finishing a contract with a petroleum company in Venezuela, and found that food stores sold no frozen plucked chicken. The housewives had to buy them alive in the market. Decided to raise chickens, he went back to Cornell for a couple of courses on poultry raising, and returned to Costa Rica. With $10,000 and plenty of enthusiasm his small business began to produce broilers and fryers thus easing the work for housewives. In doing so, his enterprise grew to a static chicken population of 90,000 which made his farm the largest in Central America.

Edible Oils

R. J. a South Dakotan, had an idea in Costa Rica. Why not set up a company that would make margarine for mass consumption? He knew butter was retailing at a high price per pound and believed he could make margarine that would not only undersell butter but also assure consumers uniformity in quality, something which they had seldom seen before. First, he had to get doctors and teachers interested so they could spread the word around.