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Starbucks

 
Hoover's Profile: Starbucks Corporation
(NASDAQ (GS):SBUX)
Company Financials
Income Statement
Balance Sheet
Cash Flow Statement

Contact Information
Starbucks Corporation
2401 Utah Ave. South
Seattle, WA 98134
WA Tel. 206-447-1575
Toll Free 800-782-7282
Fax 206-447-0828

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.starbucks.com
Employees: 176,000
Employee growth: 2.3%

Wake up and smell the coffee -- Starbucks is everywhere. The world's #1 specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks has more than 16,000 coffee shops in more than 35 countries. The outlets offer coffee drinks and food items, as well as roasted beans, coffee accessories, and teas. Starbucks owns more than 9,000 of its shops, which are located in about 10 countries (mostly in the US), while licensees and franchisees operate more than 7,400 units worldwide (primarily in shopping centers and airports). The company also owns the Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia coffee brands. In addition, Starbucks markets its coffee through grocery stores and licenses its brand for other food and beverage products.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending September, 2008:
Sales: $10,383.0M
One year growth: 10.3%
Net income: $315.5M
Income growth: (53.1%)

Officers:
Chairman, President, and CEO: Howard D. Schultz
EVP and CFO: Troy Alstead
SVP and CIO: Stephen Gillett

Competitors:
Dunkin
McDonald's
Nestlé

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Company History: Starbucks Corporation
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Incorporated: 1985 as Il Giornale
NAIC: 722213 Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars; 311920 Coffee and Tea Manufacturing; 311520 Ice Cream and Frozen Dessert Manufacturing; 312111 Soft Drink Manufacturing; 422490 Other Grocery and Related Products Wholesalers; 454110 Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses; 533110 Lessors of Nonfinancial Intangible Assets (Except Copyrighted Works)
SIC: 2095 Roasted Coffee; 2024 Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts; 2086 Bottled & Canned Soft Drinks; 6792 Oil Royalty Traders; 6794 Patent Owners & Lessors

Starbucks Corporation is the leading roaster, retailer, and marketer of specialty coffee in the world. Its operations include upwards of 7,300 coffee shops and kiosks in the United States, and nearly 3,000 in 34 other countries, with the largest numbers located in Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia, Germany, and New Zealand. In addition to a variety of coffees and coffee drinks, Starbucks shops also feature Tazo teas; pastries and other food items; espresso machines, coffee brewers, and other coffee- and tea-related items; and music CDs. The company also sells many of these products via mail-order and online at starbucks.com. It also wholesales its coffee to restaurants, businesses, education and healthcare institutions, hotels, and airlines. Through a joint venture with Pepsi-Cola Company, Starbucks bottles Frappuccino beverages and the Starbucks DoubleShot espresso drink and sells them through supermarkets and convenience and drugstores. Through a partnership with Kraft Foods, Inc., the company sells Starbucks whole bean and ground coffee into grocery, warehouse club, and mass merchandise stores. A third joint venture, with Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc., develops superpremium coffee ice creams and distributes them to U.S. supermarkets. From a single small store that opened in 1971 to its status as a 21st-century gourmet coffee giant, Starbucks has led a coffee revolution in the United States and beyond.

Roots in Coffee Retailing and Wholesaling

Starbucks was founded in Seattle, Washington, a haven for coffee aficionados. The city was noted for its coffee before World War II, but the quality of its coffee had declined so much by the late 1960s that resident Gordon Bowker made pilgrimages to Vancouver, British Columbia, to buy his beans there. His point of reference for the beverage was dark, delicious coffee he had discovered in Italy. Soon Bowker, then a writer for Seattle magazine, was making runs for friends as well. When Seattle folded, two of Bowker's friends, Jerry Baldwin, an English teacher, and Zev Siegl, a history teacher, also happened to be seeking new ventures; the three banded together and literally built their first store, located in Seattle's Pike Place Market, by hand. They raised $1,350 apiece, borrowed another $5,000, picked the name Starbucks, for the punchy "st" sound and its reference to the coffee-loving first mate in Moby Dick, then designed a two-tailed siren for a logo and set out to learn about coffee.

Siegl went to Berkeley, California, to learn from a Dutchman, Alfred Peet, who ran Peet's Coffee, which had been a legend among local coffee drinkers since 1966. Peet's approach to coffee beans became the cornerstone for Starbucks' reputation: high-grade arabica beans, roasted to a dark extreme by a trained perfectionist roaster. Starbucks bought its coffee from Peet's for its first nine months, giving away cups of coffee to hook customers. The plan worked. By 1972 the three founders had opened a second store in University Village and invested in a Probat roaster. Baldwin became the young company's first roaster.

Within its first decade, Starbucks had opened stores in Bellevue, Capitol Hill, and University Way. By 1982 the original entrepreneurs had a solid retail business of five stores, a small roasting facility, and a wholesale business that sold coffee primarily to local restaurants. The first of the company's growth-versus-ethos challenges came at this stage: how does one maintain a near fanatical dedication to freshness in wholesale? Starbucks insisted that the shelf life of coffee is less than 14 days after roasting. As a result, they donated all eight-day-old coffee to charity.

In 1982 Starbucks hired Howard Schultz to manage the company's retail sales and marketing. While vice-president of U.S. operations for Hammarplast, a Swedish housewares company, and working out of New York, Schultz met the Starbucks trio and considered their coffee a revelation. (He had grown up on instant.) He and his wife packed up and drove 3,000 miles west to Seattle to join Starbucks.

There were other changes taking place at Starbucks at the same time. Siegl had decided to leave in 1980. The name of the wholesale division was changed to Caravali, out of fear of sullying the Starbucks name with less than absolute freshness. Blue Anchor, a line of whole-bean coffees being prepackaged for supermarkets, was relinquished. Starbucks learned two lessons from their brief time in business with supermarkets: first, supermarkets and their narrow profit margins were not the best outlet for a coffee roaster who refused to compromise on quality in order to lower prices, and second, Starbucks needed to sell directly to consumers who were educated enough to know why the coffee they were buying was superior.

Mid-1980s: The Shift to Coffee Bars

In 1983 Starbucks bought Peet's Coffee, which had by then become a five-store operation itself. That same year, Schultz took a buying trip to Italy, where another coffee revelation took place. Wandering the piazzas of Milan, Schultz was captivated by the culture of coffee and the romance of Italian coffee bars. Milan had about 1,700 espresso bars, which were a third center for Italians, after work and home. Schultz returned home determined to bring Italian coffee bars to the United States, but found his bosses reluctant, being still more dedicated to retailing coffee. As a result, Schultz left the company to write a business plan of his own. His parting with Starbucks was so amicable that the founders invested in Schultz's vision. Schultz returned to Italy to do research, visiting hundreds of espresso and coffee bars.

In the spring of 1986, he opened his first coffee bar in the Columbia Seafirst Center, the tallest building west of Chicago. Faithful to its inspiration, the bar had a stately espresso machine as its centerpiece. Called Il Giornale, the bar served Starbucks coffee and was an instant hit. A second was soon opened in Seattle, and a third in Vancouver. Schultz hired Dave Olsen, the proprietor of one of the first bohemian espresso bars in Seattle, as a coffee consultant and employee trainer.

A year later, Schultz was thriving while Starbucks was encountering frustration. The wholesale market had been reconfigured by the popularity of flavored coffees, which Starbucks resolutely refused to produce. The company's managers were also increasingly aggravated by the lack of wholesale quality control, so they sold their wholesale line, Caravali, to Seattle businessman Bart Wilson and a group of investors. In addition, Bowker was interested in leaving the company to concentrate on a new project, Red Hook Ale. Schultz approached his old colleagues with an attractive offer: how about $4 million for the six-unit Starbucks chain? They sold, with Olsen remaining as Starbucks' coffee buyer and roaster; the Starbucks stores were merged into Il Giornale. Baldwin remained president of the now separately operated Peet's Coffee and Tea. In 1987 the Il Giornale shops changed their names to Starbucks, and the company became Starbucks Corporation and prepared to go national.

In August 1987 Starbucks Corporation had 11 stores and fewer than 100 employees. In October of that year it opened its first store in Chicago, and by 1989 there were nine Chicago Starbucks, where employees trained by Seattle managers served coffee roasted in the Seattle plant.

Their methods were costly, using high-grade arabica beans and expensive dark roasting, while suffering the financial consequences of snubbing the supermarket and wholesale markets. Nevertheless, Starbucks' market was growing rapidly: sales of specialty coffee in the United States grew from $50 million in 1983 to $500 million five years later.

In 1988 Starbucks introduced a mail-order catalog, and by the end of that year, the company was serving mail-order customers in every state and operating a total of 33 stores. Because the company's reputation grew steadily by word of mouth, it spent little on ads. Schultz's management philosophy, "hire people smarter than you are and get out of their way," fed his aggressive expansion plans. Industry experts were brought in to manage Starbucks' finances, human resources, marketing, and mail-order divisions. The company's middle ranks were filled with experienced managers from such giants as Taco Bell, Wendy's, and Blockbuster. Schultz was willing to lose money while preparing Starbucks for explosive growth. By 1990 he had hired two star executives: Howard Behar, previously president of a leading developer of outdoor resorts, Thousand Trails, Inc.; and Orin Smith, chief financial and administrative officer for Danzas, USA, a freight forwarder.

Starbucks installed a costly computer network and hired a specialist in information technology from McDonald's Corporation to design a point-of-sale system via PCs for store managers to use. Every night, stores passed their sales information to Seattle headquarters, which allowed planners to spot regional buying trends almost instantly. Starbucks lost money while preparing for its planned expansion, including more than $1 million in 1989 alone. In 1990 the headquarters expanded and a new roasting plant was built. Nevertheless, Schultz resisted both the temptation to franchise and to flavor the beans. Slowly, the chain developed near-cult status.

Rapid Early 1990s Growth As a Public Company

Starbucks also developed a reputation for treating its employees well. In 1991 it became the first privately owned company in history to establish an employee stock option program that included part-timers. Starbucks also offered health and dental benefits to both full- and part-time employees. As a result, the company had a turnover rate that was very low for the food service industry. Employees were rigorously trained, completing at least 25 hours of coursework on topics including the history of coffee, drink preparation, and how to brew a perfect cup at home. The company went public in 1992, the same year it opened its first stores in San Francisco, San Diego, Orange County, and Denver. Its stores totaled 165 by year's end. The company began special relationships with Nordstrom, Inc. and Barnes & Noble, Inc., offering coffee to shoppers at both chains.

Growth mandated the opening of a second roasting plant, located in Kent, Washington, by 1993. After 22 years in business, Starbucks had only 19 individuals it deemed qualified to roast coffee. One of the 19 was Schultz, who considered it a tremendous privilege. Roasters were trained for more than a year before being allowed to roast a batch, which consisted of up to 600 pounds of coffee roasted for 12 to 15 minutes in a gas oven. The beans made a popping sound, like popcorn, when ready, but roasters also used sight and smell to tell when the beans were done to perfection. Starbucks standards required roasters to test the roasted beans in an Agron blood-cell analyzer to assure that each batch was up to standards. If not, it was discarded.

Starbucks' first East Coast store opened in 1993, in a premier location in Washington, D.C. The chain had 275 stores by the end of 1993 and 425 one year later. Sales had grown an average of 65 percent annually over the previous three years (reaching $284.9 million in 1994), with net income growing 70 to 100 percent a year during that time. Starbucks broke into important new markets in 1994, including Minneapolis, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, and purchased the Coffee Connection, a 23-store rival based in Boston, for $23 million, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. Smith was promoted to president and COO and Behar became president, international. Starbucks also announced a partnership with Pepsi-Cola to develop new ready-to-drink coffee beverages. After Starbucks debuted a frozen coffee drink called Frappuccino in its stores in the summer of 1995, resulting in a sales bonanza, the partnership with Pepsi began rolling out a bottled version in grocery, convenience, and drugstores the following year. Starbucks broke into new markets in 1995, including Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia. That same year, Starbucks began supplying coffee for United Airlines flights and launched a line of Starbucks compilation music CDs, which were sold in its coffeehouses.

Late 1990s: International Expansion and New Ventures

The following year, in addition to continued North American expansion into Rhode Island, Idaho, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah, and Ontario, the company ventured overseas for the first time. Its initial foreign forays were launched through joint venture and licensing arrangements with prominent local retailers. With the help of SAZABY Inc., a Japanese retailer and restaurateur, the first market developed in 1996 was Japan; through other partnerships, Hawaii and Singapore also received their first Starbucks that year. The Philippines followed in 1997. Meantime, Starbucks entered into a partnership with Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. in 1996 to develop and sell Starbucks Ice Cream. Within eight months of introduction, the product became the number one coffee ice cream in the United States. Starbucks' expansion into Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 1997 helped the total number of units reach an astounding 1,412 by year-end, more than double the previous two-year total. Sales approached the $1 billion mark that year, while net income hit $57.4 million, more than five times the result for 1994.

As this rapid growth continued, the company began to be needled by late night talk show hosts for its seeming Starbucks-on-every-corner expansion strategy, while a number of owners and patrons of local coffee shops began speaking out and demonstrating against what they considered overly aggressive and even predatory moves into new territory. Critics complained that the company was deliberately locating its units near local coffee merchants to siphon off sales, sometimes placing a Starbucks directly across the street. In 1996 and 1997 residents in Toronto, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Portland, Oregon, staged sidewalk protests to attempt to keep Starbucks out of their neighborhoods. One of the company's responses to the scattered resistance was to try to enhance its image through stepped-up advertising. Still, like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and its reputation in some quarters as a destroyer of Main Street, Starbucks remained the object of snickers from comedians and derision from a vocal minority of protesters. This undercurrent of hostility burst into the spotlight in late 1999 when some of the more aggressive protesters against a World Trade Organization meeting took their anger out on several Starbucks stores in the company's hometown of Seattle, tagging a number of the 26 downtown locations with graffiti and inflicting more serious vandalism on three stores, which were then temporarily closed.

The anti-multinational protesters in Seattle also singled out stores operated by McDonald's Corporation and Nike, Inc. The lumping of the once modest purveyor of gourmet coffee in with these global giants was in part an outgrowth of the company's aggressive overseas expansion in the late 1990s. Growth in the Pacific Rim continued with the opening of locations in Taiwan, Thailand, New Zealand, and Malaysia in 1998 and in China and South Korea in 1999. By early 2000 the number of Starbucks in Japan had reached 100. The company aimed to have 500 stores in the Pacific Rim by 2003. The Middle East was another target of global growth, with stores opened in Kuwait and Lebanon in 1999, but it was the United Kingdom that was the object of the company's other big late 1990s push. In 1998 Starbucks acquired Seattle Coffee Company, the leading U.K. specialty coffee firm, for about $86 million in stock. Starbucks began rebranding Seattle Coffee's locations under the Starbucks name. Aggressive expansion in the United Kingdom yielded more than 100 units by late 1999. Starbucks hoped to use its U.K. base for an invasion of the Continent, aiming for 500 stores in Europe by 2003.

Growth was not slowing back home either. Areas receiving their first Starbucks in 1998 and 1999 included New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. The number of North American locations approached 2,200 by early 2000. Always searching for new revenue streams, Starbucks in 1998 entered into a long-term licensing agreement with Kraft Foods, Inc. for the marketing and distribution of Starbucks whole bean and ground coffee into grocery, warehouse club, and mass merchandise stores. The company also began experimenting with a full-service casual restaurant called Café Starbucks. A further move into food came in early 1999 through the purchase of Pasqua Coffee Co., a chain of coffee and sandwich shops with 56 units in California and New York. Starbucks had already developed its own in-house tea brand, Infusia, but it was replaced following the early 1999 acquisition of Tazo Tea Company, a Portland, Oregon-based maker of premium teas and related products with distribution through 5,000 retail outlets.

Starbucks had also launched a web site featuring an online store in 1998, and Schultz began talking about Starbucks becoming a mega-cybermerchant offering everything from gourmet foods to furniture. To this end, the company attempted, but failed, to acquire Williams-Sonoma, Inc., a specialty retailer of high-end kitchenware. Wall Street analysts began questioning the wisdom of moving so far afield from the company's core coffee business. In mid-1999, following Starbucks' announcement of an earnings shortfall, the company's stock plunged 28 percent, leading Schultz to pull back on his ambitious cyber plans.

Other developments included an agreement with Albertson's, Inc. to open more than 100 Starbucks coffee bars in Albertson's supermarkets in the United States; and the acquisition of the five-store San Francisco-based Hear Music chain, in an extension of Starbucks' music retailing ventures. Image problems continued to crop up for the rapidly growing company, whose 1999 revenues of $1.68 billion were nearly six times the figure of five years earlier. In April 2000 a San Francisco-based human rights group called Global Exchange was readying a large protest at Starbucks in 29 cities to publicize its allegations that the coffee company was buying its beans from wholesalers who were paying farmers what amounted to poverty wages. In a preemptive move, which staved off the protests and the resultant bad publicity, Starbucks announced that it would buy more coffee certified as "fair trade," meaning that the farmers who grew it received more than market price for their crop, sometimes as high as three times the 30 cents per pound they typically received.

Accelerating Growth in the Early 21st Century

In the early 21st century, Starbucks was working to achieve Schultz's ambitious goals of 500 stores in both Japan and Europe by 2003, as well as his ultimate goal of 20,000 units worldwide. With about half of that total envisioned to be located outside North America, Schultz decided to spend more time on the company's overseas operations. In June 2000 he stepped down as CEO of the company to become its chief global strategist, while remaining chairman. Schultz began working closely with Peter Maslen, who had taken charge of the international division in late 1999, following the retirement of Howard Behar. Assuming the CEO title was Orin Smith, who retained his previous responsibility for domestic retail and wholesale operations, alliances, and coffee roasting and distribution.

Starbucks' rate of expansion accelerated in the early 2000s: after opening about 1,200 new stores each year from 2001 to 2004, the company added nearly 1,700 new outlets in 2005, pushing the chain past the 10,000 unit mark. About 1,150 of the units opened in 2005 were located in the United States, bringing the domestic total to 7,300. Even this figure did not represent a saturated market, as Starbucks was now aiming to eventually have 15,000 stores in the U.S. market alone. It also expected to eventually increase its international outlets from the approximately 3,000 that were operating in late 2005 to 15,000. Starbucks debuted in continental Europe in 2001 when stores were opened in Switzerland and Austria, and further new territories were entered in each of the following years: Oman, Indonesia, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Greece in 2002; Turkey, Chile, Peru, and Cyprus in 2003; Paris, France, in 2004; and Jordan in 2005. In addition, the Starbucks unit in Japan was taken public in 2001. During this same period, the company's revenues skyrocketed, surging from $2.17 billion in 2000 to $5.39 billion in 2005. Net earnings increased more than fivefold, from $94.6 million to $494.5 million.

Among the new initiatives during this period, the company in 2001 introduced the Starbucks Card, a stored-value card that customers could use and reload, and also began offering high-speed wireless Internet access at its stores. In 2002 the beverage line was extended to include the first noncoffee/nontea blended concoction, the Crème Frappuccino, a cold, creamy vanilla drink. The Starbucks Card in 2003 was extended into a combined credit and stored-value card. That same year, the company acquired Seattle Coffee Company from AFC Enterprises, Inc. for $72 million, thereby gaining the Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia coffee brands. Starbucks' music endeavors expanded in 2004 with the launch of the first Hear Music media bars at select Starbucks locations. These media bars enabled customers to burn unique compilation CDs from an initial selection of 200,000 songs. Also in 2004 the company entered into an agreement with Jim Beam Brands Co. to develop and market a superpremium coffee liqueur, and the following year Jim Beam began distributing Starbucks Coffee Liqueur to licensed establishments, not to Starbucks outlets. A further expansion of the outlets' beverage offerings came in 2005 when Chantico drinking chocolate debuted in the United States and Canada and the company acquired Ethos Water.

In March 2005 Smith retired as CEO and was succeeded by Jim Donald, who had been president of the firm's North America unit and had been hired away from Pathmark Stores, Inc. in 2002. Donald was a main force behind a drive to broaden Starbucks outlets beyond coffee--not only into music but also into food. Lunch items, typically sandwiches, began to be offered at many North American Starbucks, and testing of hot breakfasts, such as ham, egg, and cheese on a muffin, began in 2004. Rather than morphing into a restaurant chain, however, Schultz (who remained chairman) and Donald aimed to reshape Starbucks into a retailer with a broader array of products and services. At the same time, the global expansion continued toward the eventual goal of 30,000 outlets worldwide and with China potentially rivaling the United States as Starbucks' largest market. In 2006 alone, the company planned to open another 1,800 stores.

Principal Subsidiaries

Olympic Casualty Insurance Company; Seattle Coffee Company; Starbucks Capital Asset Leasing Company, LLC; Starbucks Coffee Company (Australia) Pty. Ltd.; Starbucks Coffee Canada, Inc.; Starbucks Coffee Holdings (UK) Limited; Seattle Coffee Company (International) Limited (U.K.); Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Limited; Torz & Macatonia Limited (U.K.); Starbucks Coffee International, Inc.; Coffee Concepts (Southern China) Ltd. (Hong Kong); Coffee Concepts (Guangdong) Ltd. (China); Coffee Concepts (Shenzhen) Ltd. (China); Rain City C.V. (Netherlands); Emerald City C.V. (Netherlands); Starbucks Coffee EMEA B.V. (Netherlands); Starbucks Manufacturing EMEA B.V. (Netherlands); Starbucks Coffee (Deutschland) GmbH (Germany); Starbucks Coffee (Ireland) Limited; Starbucks Coffee Trading Company Sarl (Switzerland); Starbucks Coffee Agronomy Company S.R.L. (Costa Rica); Qingdao American Starbucks Coffee Company Limited (China); Starbucks Coffee (Dalian) Company Limited (China); Chengdu Starbucks Coffee Company Limited (China); Starbucks Card Europe, Limited (U.K.); Starbucks Coffee Asia Pacific Limited (Hong Kong); Starbucks Coffee Singapore Pte. Ltd.; Sur-Andino Café S.A. (Chile); Starbucks Coffee (Thailand) Ltd.; Starbucks Global Card Services, Inc.; Starbucks Manufacturing Corporation; Urban Coffee Opportunities, LLC.

Principal Competitors

Caribou Coffee Company, Inc.; Diedrich Coffee, Inc.; Dunkin' Brands, Inc.; Peet's Coffee & Tea, Inc.; Panera Bread Company; Cosi, Inc.; ABP Corporation; Tully's Coffee Corporation.

Further Reading

Abramovitch, Ingrid, "Miracles of Marketing: How to Reinvent Your Product," Success, April 1993, pp. 22-26.

Anders, George, "Starbucks in Pact with Kozmo.com on Using Stores," Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2000, p. A34.

Barron, Kelly, "The Cappuccino Conundrum," Forbes, February 22, 1999, p. 54.

Brammer, Rhonda, "Grounds for Caution," Barron's, August 15, 1994, p. 20.

Browder, Seanna, "Starbucks Does Not Live by Coffee Alone," Business Week, August 5, 1996, p. 76.

Cuneo, Alice, "Starbucks' Word-of-Mouth Wonder," Advertising Age, March 7, 1994, p. 12.

Daniels, Cora, "Mr. Coffee," Fortune, April 14, 2003, pp. 139-40.

Doherty, Jacqueline, "Make It Decaf," Barron's, May 20, 2002, pp. 20-21.

Ebenkamp, Becky, "This Java Joint Is Jumpin'," Brandweek, October 10, 2005, pp. M42-M45, M66.

Fitch, Stephane, "Latte Grande, Extra Froth," Forbes, March 19, 2001, p. 58.

Fitzpatrick, Eileen, "Starbucks Buy Hear Music Chain," Billboard, December 4, 1999, p. 10.

Frank, Stephen, "Starbucks Brews Strong Results Analysts Like," Wall Street Journal, July 14, 1994, p. C1.

Gibson, Richard, "Some Meatloaf with That Decaf Latte?," Wall Street Journal, March 16, 1999, p. B1.

------, "Starbucks Cyberspace Mission Returns to Earth After Big Bang on Wall Street," Wall Street Journal, July 23, 1999, p. B4.

------, "Starbucks Holders Wake Up, Smell the Coffee and Sell," Wall Street Journal, July 2, 1999, p. B3.

Gray, Steven, "Starbucks Brews Broader Menu," Wall Street Journal, February 9 2005, p. B9.

Gray, Steven, and Amy Merrick, "Latte Letdown: Starbucks Set to Raise Prices," Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2004, p. B1.

Gray, Steven, and Ethan Smith, "In Latest Music Move, Starbucks Will Blend Hot Java, CD Burning," Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2004, p. D1.

------, "New Grind: At Starbucks, a Blend of Coffee and Music Creates a Potent Mix," Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2005, p. A1.

Hamstra, Mark, "Starbucks' Pasqua Purchase Dovetails with Food-Caf Tests," Nation's Restaurant News, January 4, 1999, pp. 3, 104.

Harris, John, "Cuppa Sumatra," Forbes, November 26, 1990, pp. 213-14.

Holmes, Stanley, "First the Music, Then the Coffee," Business Week, November 22, 2004, p. 66.

------, "Strong Lattes, Sour Notes," Business Week, June 20, 2005, pp. 58, 60.

Holmes, Stanley, Drake Bennett, Kate Carlisle, and Chester Dawson, "Planet Starbucks: To Keep Up the Growth, It Must Go Global Quickly," Business Week, September 9, 2002, pp. 100-05+.

Holmes, Stanley, Irene M. Kunii, Jack Ewing, and Kerry Capell, "For Starbucks, There's No Place Like Home," Business Week, June 9, 2003, p. 48.

Jones Yang, Dori, "The Starbucks Enterprise Shifts into Warp Speed," Business Week, October 24, 1994, pp. 76-78.

Kaplan, David A., "Trouble Brewing," Newsweek, July 19, 1999, pp. 40-41.

Kim, Nancy J., "Starbucks Weighing European Growth Strategies," Puget Sound Business Journal, August 20, 1999, p. 9.

Kugiya, Hugo, "Seattle's Coffee King," Seattle Times, December 15, 1996, p. 20.

Leung, Shirley, "Starbucks May Indeed Be a Robust Staple," Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2002, p. B4.

Meyers, William, "Conscience in a Cup of Coffee," U.S. News and World Report, October 31, 2005, p. 48.

Ordonez, Jennifer, "Starbucks' Schultz to Leave Top Post, Lead Global Effort," Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2000, p. B3.

Pressler, Margaret Webb, "The Brain Behind the Beans," Washington Post, October 5, 1997, p. H1.

Reese, Jennifer, "Starbucks: Inside the Coffee Cult," Fortune, December 9, 1996, pp. 190-92+.

Robinson, Kathryn, "Coffee Achievers," Seattle Weekly, August 2, 1989.

Schultz, Howard, "By Way of Canarsie, One Large Hot Cup of Business Strategy," New York Times, December 14, 1994, pp. C1, C8.

Schultz, Howard, and Dori Jones Yang, Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cut at a Time, New York: Hyperion, 1997, 351 p.

Schwartz, Nelson D., "Still Perking After All These Years," Fortune, May 24, 1999, pp. 203+.

Serwer, Andy, "Starbucks to Go," Fortune, January 26, 2004, pp. 60-64+.

Simons, John, "A Case of the Shakes: As Starbucks Cafes Multiply, So Do the Growing Pains," U.S. News and World Report, July 14, 1997, pp. 42-44.

Spector, Amy, "Starbucks Launches Lunch Tests in Seven Major Markets," Nation's Restaurant News, October 18, 1999, p. 32.

Strauss, Karyn, "Howard Schultz," Nation's Restaurant News, January 2000, pp. 162-63.

Theodore, Sarah, "Expanding the Coffee Experience," Beverage Industry, October 2002, pp. 57, 60-62.

Weiss, Naomi, "How Starbucks Impassions Workers to Drive Growth," Workforce, August 1998.

Whalen, Jeanne, "Starbucks, Pepsi Tackle Coffee Venture," Advertising Age, August 1, 1994, p. 44.

— Carol I. Keeley; Updated by David E. Salamie



(established 1971)

This American chain of coffee houses, with its distinctive logo, has become a recognized brand in countless major towns and cities throughout the world, with innumerable smaller outlets located in bookshops, hotels, airports, stations, and sports and leisure centres. Based on the concept of a comfortable living room combined with coffee shop, the brand has also developed its commercial potential to embrace a wide range of other products, whether closely related—such as own-brand coffee-beans, biscuits, and ice cream—or more generic lifestyle commodities such as music. The company's distinctive logo was designed by Seattle-based Heckler Associates in 1971 and underwent three changes between then and its more definitive 1990 version. Although based on the image of a mythical siren, due to the company founders' interest in the sea, the increasingly simplified image has made a global impact. The first Japanese Starbucks outlets opened in 1996 and, by the early 21st century, had outlets in more than 30 countries including China. The expansion in Japan was dramatic, opening its first store in the Ginza district of Tokyo in August 1996 and its 400th in Okinawa in 2002. The success of the Starbucks lifestyle concept, accompanied by rapid growth and high levels of profitability, has been such that it has also given rise to a number of imitators. The first Starbucks location opened in the United States, in Pike Place, Seattle in 1971 and the company expanded globally with a brand recognition that has been compared to the longer standing, brand-distinctive McDonald's fast-food empire. However, in its early years the company's activities were mainly concerned with the marketing of coffee to expresso bars and restaurants and it was not until 1983, when its marketing director Howard Schultz travelled to Italy, that the idea of developing a coffee bar culture began to take off. Starbuck's achievements have been such that, in 2003, it was considered by Fortune, the leading American business magazine, to be one of its ten most admired companies. However, like many other American global brands, it also attracted criticism but sought to counter this through its profiling of progressive employment practices, including the offer of share options to part-time staff, and a commitment to ecological and environmentally-friendly policies.

Wikipedia: Starbucks
Top
Starbucks
Type Public (NASDAQSBUX)
Founded Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington (1971)
Founder(s) Zev Siegl, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker
Headquarters Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Key people Howard Schultz, Chairman, President and CEO
Martin Coles, President, Starbucks International
Troy Alstead, Chief Financial Officer
Stephen Gillett, Chief Information Officer
Industry Restaurants
Retail coffee and tea
Retail beverages
Entertainment
Products Whole bean coffee
Boxed tea
Made-to-order beverages
Bottled beverages
Baked goods
Merchandise
Frappuccino beverages
Smoothies
Services Coffee
Revenue US$10.383 billion (2008)
Operating income US$503.9 million (2008)
Net income US$315.5 million (2008)
Total assets US$5.673 billion (2008)
Total equity US$2.491 billion (2008)
Employees 176,000 (2008)[1]
Subsidiaries Starbucks Coffee Company
Tazo Tea Company
Seattle's Best Coffee
Torrefazione Italia
Hear Music
Ethos Water
Website Starbucks.com

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQSBUX) is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world,[2] with 16,120 stores in 49 countries, including around 11,000 in the United States, followed by nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan.[3] Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks, and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the company's products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also offered at grocery stores.

From Starbucks' founding in later forms in Seattle as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, the company has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. The first store outside the United States or Canada opened in the mid-'90s, and overseas stores now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores.[4] The company plans to open a net of 900 new stores outside of the United States in 2009,[5] but has announced 900 store closures in the United States since 2008.

Starbucks has been a frequent target of protests on issues such as fair-trade policies, labor relations, environmental impact, perceived anti-competitive practices,* and rumors of support for the Israeli military.

Contents

History

The first Starbucks branch

Founding

The Starbucks Center, Seattle. The company HQ, in the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog distribution center building

The original Starbucks was opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 by three partners: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired by entrepreneur Alfred Peet (whom they knew personally) to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment. From 1971–1976, that first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue; it then was relocated to 1912 Pike Place, where it remains to this day. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers.

Entrepreneur Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982 as Director of Retail Operations and Marketing, and after a trip to Milan, Italy advised that the company should sell coffee and espresso drinks as well as beans. The owners rejected this idea, believing that getting into the beverage business would distract the company from its primary focus. To them, coffee was something to be prepared in the home. Certain that there was money to be made selling pre-made drinks, Schultz started the Il Giornale coffee bar chain in 1985.

In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Baldwin, took the opportunity to purchase Peet's (Baldwin still works there).

Sale and expansion

In 1987, they sold the Starbucks chain to Schultz's Il Giornale, which rebranded the Il Giornale outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand. Starbucks opened its first locations outside Seattle at Waterfront Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Chicago, Illinois, that same year. At the time of its initial public offering on the stock market in 1992, Starbucks had grown to 165 outlets.

International expansion

Currently Starbucks is present in more than 40 countries

North America South America Oceania Europe Africa Asia
International presence of Starbucks stores

The first Starbucks location outside North America opened in Tokyo, Japan, in 1996. Starbucks entered the U.K. market in 1998 with the $83 million[6] acquisition of the then 60-outlet, UK-based Seattle Coffee Company, re-branding all the stores as Starbucks. By November 2005, London had more outlets than Manhattan,[7] a sign of Starbucks becoming an international brand.

In April 2003, Starbucks completed the purchase of Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia from AFC Enterprises, bringing the total number of Starbucks-operated locations worldwide to more than 6,400. On September 14, 2006, rival Diedrich Coffee announced that it would sell most of its company-owned retail stores to Starbucks. This sale includes the company-owned locations of the Oregon-based Coffee People chain. Starbucks converted the Diedrich Coffee and Coffee People locations to Starbucks, although the Portland airport Coffee People locations were excluded from the sale.[8]

Many bookstores have Starbucks outlets within them, including Barnes & Noble in the United States, Borders in the United Kingdom, Chapters-Indigo in Canada, Livraria Saraiva and Fnac in Brazil and B2S in Thailand.

Starbucks use the Bing Sutt design in Hong Kong

The Starbucks location in the former imperial palace in Beijing closed in July 2007. The coffee shop had been a source of ongoing controversy since its opening in 2000 with protesters objecting that the presence of the American chain in this location "was trampling on Chinese culture."[9][10][11][12] Also in 2007, Starbucks cancelled plans to expand into India,[13] but opened its first store in Russia, ten years after first registering a trademark there.[14] In 2008, Starbucks continued its expansion, settling in Argentina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Portugal [3]. In Buenos Aires, the biggest Starbucks store in Latin America was opened. In April 2009, Starbucks entered Poland.[15] New stores will be opened in Algeria.[16] Starbucks has also opened its doors on 5 August 2009, in Utrecht, Netherlands. On October 21, 2009 it was announced that Starbucks will finally establish in Sweden, starting with a location at Arlanda airport outside Stockholm.[17]

Restaurant experiment

In 1999, Starbucks experimented with eateries in the San Francisco Bay area through a restaurant chain called Circadia.[18] These restaurants were soon "outed" as Starbucks establishments and converted to Starbucks cafes.

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

Corporate governance

Orin C. Smith was President and CEO of Starbucks from 2001 to 2005.

Starbucks' chairman, Howard Schultz, has talked about making sure growth does not dilute the company's culture [19] and the common goal of the company's leadership to act like a small company.

In January 2008, Chairman Howard Schultz resumed his roles as President and CEO after an eight year hiatus, replacing Jim Donald, who took the posts in 2005 but was asked to step down after sales slowed in 2007. Schultz aims to restore what he calls the "distinctive Starbucks experience" in the face of rapid expansion. Analysts believe that Schultz must determine how to contend with higher materials prices and enhanced competition from lower-price fast food chains, including McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Starbucks announced it will discontinue its warm breakfast sandwich products, originally intended to launch nationwide in 2008, in order to refocus the brand on coffee, but the sandwiches were reformulated to deal with complaints and the product line stayed[20]. On February 23, 2008, Starbucks closed its stores from 5:30-9:00 p.m. local time to train its baristas.[21][22]

Recent changes

A typical sales area, this one in Peterborough, UK, showing a display of food and the beverage preparation area

In March 2008, Schultz made several announcements to Starbucks shareholders. Schultz introduced Starbucks' "state of the art espresso system",[23] the Thermoplan AG manufactured Mastrena, which replaced their previous superauto, the Thermoplan Verismo 801 (known internationally as the Thermoplan Black & White). Starbucks also announced that the company hopes to enter the energy drink market. Pre-ground beans will no longer be used, so that the grinding of whole bean coffee will "bring aroma, romance and theater" to American stores.[24] The company also announced the acquisition of The Coffee Equipment Company,[23] the manufacturer of the Clover Brewing System. They are currently test marketing this "fresh-pressed" coffee system at six Starbucks locations; three in Seattle, and three in Boston.[25]

Starbucks stopped using milk originating from rBGH-treated cows in 2007.[26]

In early 2008, Starbucks started a community website, My Starbucks Idea, designed to collect suggestions and feedback from customers. Other users comment and vote on suggestions. Journalist Jack Schofield noted that "My Starbucks seems to be all sweetness and light at the moment, which I don't think is possible without quite a lot of censorship". The website is powered by the Salesforce software.[27]

In May 2008, a loyalty program was introduced for registered users of the Starbucks Card (previously simply a gift card) offering perks such as free Wi-Fi Internet access and free refills.[28]. Additionally, Starbucks Gold, a $25 yearly membership, entitles members to 10% off all purchases (besides iTunes, magazines, and payment for the membership/gift card) in Starbucks (not Barnes & Noble) stores, and along with 3 10% off guest passes, allows for a member to bring people in for friends and family day, allows for free treats throughout the year, 2 hours of AT&T Wi-Fi, and members-only discounts. Starbucks Card holders can get 2 hours of free Wi-Fi with Bell Mobility. In Germany customers can get 1 hour of free Wi-Fi with a voucher card, and in Switzerland and Austria customers can get 30 minutes the same way (through T-Mobile).

In June 2009, the company announced that it will be overhauling its menu and selling salads and baked goods without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial ingredients.[29] The move is expected to attract health- and cost-conscious consumers and will not affect prices.[29]

In September 2009, Starbucks in the UK rolled out free Wi-Fi at most of its outlets, working with its WiFi partner BT Openzone. Customers with a Starbucks Card will be able to log-on to the Wifi in-store for free with their card details, thereby bringing the benefits of the loyalty program in-line with the US.[30]

Store closures

On July 1, 2008, the company announced it was closing 600 underperforming company-owned stores and cutting U.S. expansion plans amid growing economic uncertainty.[31][32] On July 29, 2008, Starbucks also cut almost 1,000 non-retail jobs as part of its bid to reenergize the brand and boost its profit. Of the new cuts, 550 of the positions were layoffs and the rest were unfilled jobs.[33] These closings and layoffs effectively ended the company’s period of growth and expansion that began in the mid-1990s.

Starbucks also announced in July 2008 that it would close 61 of its 84 stores in Australia by August 3, 2008.[34] Nick Wailes, an expert in strategic management of the University of Sydney, commented that "Starbucks failed to truly understand Australia’s cafe culture."[35]

On January 28, 2009, Starbucks announced the closure of an additional 300 underperforming stores and the elimination of 7,000 positions. CEO Howard Schultz also announced that he had received board approval to reduce his salary.[36]

In August 2009, Ahold announced closures and rebranding for nearly half, 43 exactly, of their licensed store Starbucks kiosks for their US based Stop & Shop and Giant supermarkets. Ahold has not abandoned the licensed Starbucks concept yet, they plan to open 5 new licensed stores by the end of 2009.[37][38]

2009 New York City bombing

At approximately 3:30 a.m. on May 25, 2009, a Starbucks store on the Upper East Side in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, was bombed. A small improvised explosive device was used and damage was limited to exterior windows and a sidewalk bench; there were no injuries.[39] Residents of apartments above the bombing site were briefly evacuated.[40] Police believed at first that the bombing may be related to a serial bomber operating in Manhattan,[40] because it was similar in nature to earlier bombings in Manhattan at the British and Mexican consulates, as well as a U.S. military-recruiting center in Times Square.[41] However, a 17-year-old boy was arrested that July after boasting that he bombed the store to emulate the movie Fight Club.[42]

Debranding

In 2009, at least three stores in Seattle are being 'debranded' to remove the logo and brand name, and remodel the stores as local coffee houses "inspired by Starbucks."[43][44] The first, 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, opened in July on Capitol Hill after Starbucks employees visited local coffee houses on 'observation' trips. It serves wine and beer, and plans to host live music and poetry readings.[45] The stores have been called "stealth Starbucks"[43][46] and the practice has been criticized as "local-washing", similar to greenwashing.[47]

Intellectual property

Starbucks U.S. Brands, LLC, is a Starbucks-owned company that currently holds and owns the property rights to approximately 120 Starbucks Coffee Company patents and trademarks. It is located at 2525 Starbucks Way in Minden, Nevada.[48]

Name

The company is named in part after Starbuck, Captain Ahab's first mate in the novel Moby-Dick, as well as a turn-of-the-century mining camp (Starbo or Storbo) on Mount Rainier. According to Howard Schultz's book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, the name of the company was derived from Moby-Dick, although not in as direct a fashion as many assume. Gordon Bowker liked the name "Pequod" (the ship in the novel), but his then creative partner Terry Heckler responded, "No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!" Heckler suggested "Starbo". Brainstorming with these two ideas resulted in the company being named for the Pequod's first mate, Starbuck.[49]

International names

Starbucks at Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai
A store in Seoul, South Korea. The sign is not written in English, which is uncommon.
A store in Xian, China.

Starbucks is known internationally by the following names:

  • Arabic-speaking countries: ستاربكس (transliteration: stārbaks)
  • Bulgaria: Старбъкс (transliteration: Starbâks)
  • China,Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan: 星巴克 Pinyin: xīngbākè (星 xīng means "star", while 巴克 is a transliteration of "-bucks")
  • Israel: סטארבקס (transliteration: sṭārbaqs)
  • Japan: スターバックス (transliteration: sutābakkusu)
  • Russia: Старбакс (transliteration: Starbaks)
  • South Korea: 스타벅스 (transliteration: seutabeokseu), often used in conjunction with the English name
  • Quebec, Canada: Café Starbucks Coffee[50]
  • Thailand: สตาร์บัคส์ pronounced [satāːbākʰ]

Original brown logo

In 2006, Valerie O'Neil, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said that the logo is an image of a "twin-tailed siren".[51] The logo has been significantly streamlined over the years. In the first version, which was based on a 16th-century Norse woodcut[49], the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully visible double fish tail. The image also had a rough visual texture and has been likened to a melusine.[52] In the second version, which was used from 1987–92, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, used since 1992, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. The original "woodcut" logo has been moved to the Starbuck's Headquarters in Seattle.

At the beginning of September 2006 and then again in early 2008, Starbucks temporarily reintroduced its original brown logo on paper hot-drink cups. Starbucks has stated that this was done to show the company's heritage from the Pacific Northwest and to celebrate 35 years of business. The vintage logo sparked some controversy due in part to the siren's bare breasts,[53] but the temporary switch garnered little attention from the media. Starbucks had drawn similar criticism when they reintroduced the vintage logo in 2006.[54] The logo was altered when Starbucks entered the Saudi Arabian market in 2000 to remove the mermaid, leaving only her crown,[55] as reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning column by Colbert I. King in The Washington Post in 2002. The company announced three months later that it would be using the international logo in Saudi Arabia.[56]

Parodies and infringements

Starbucks is a frequent target of parodies and imitations of its logo, and often uses legal action against those it perceives to be infringing on its intellectual property. In 2000, San Francisco cartoonist Kieron Dwyer was sued by Starbucks for copyright and trademark infringement after creating a parody of its siren logo and putting it on the cover of one of his comics; later placing it on coffee mugs, t-shirts, and stickers that he sold on his website and at comic book conventions. Dwyer felt that since his work was a parody it was protected by his right to free speech under U.S. law. The case was eventually settled out of court, as Dwyer claimed he did not have the financial ability to endure a trial case with Starbucks. The judge agreed that Dwyer's work was a parody and thus enjoyed constitutional protection; however, he was forbidden from financially "profiting" from using a "confusingly similar" image of the Starbucks siren logo. Dwyer is currently allowed to display the image as an expression of free speech, but he can no longer sell it.[57] In a similar case, a New York store selling stickers and T-shirts using the Starbucks logo with the words "fuck off" was sued by the company in 1999.[58][59] An anti-Starbucks website, starbuckscoffee.co.uk, which encouraged people to deface the Starbucks logo[60] was transferred to Starbucks by Nominet UK, the registry for .uk domain names in 2005.[61][62] Christian bookstores and websites in the US are selling a T-shirt featuring a logo with the mermaid replaced by Jesus and the words "Sacrificed for me" around the edge.[63]

Other successful cases filed by Starbucks include the case won in 2006 against the chain Xingbake in Shanghai, China for trademark infringement, because the chain used a green-and-white logo with a name that sounded phonetically similar to the Chinese for Starbucks.[64] Starbucks did not open any stores after first registering its trademark in Russia in 1997 and in 2002 a Russian lawyer successfully filed a request to cancel the trademark. He then registered the name with a Moscow company and asked for $600,000 to sell the trademark to Starbucks, but was ruled against in November 2005.[14] A coffee store owner in Oregon called Sam Buck was prohibited from using her name on the shop front in 2006.[65]

In 2003, Starbucks sent a cease-and-desist letter to "HaidaBucks Coffee House" in Masset, British Columbia, Canada. The store was owned by a group of young Haida men, commonly referred to as "bucks." After facing criticism, Starbucks dropped its demand after HaidaBucks dropped "coffee house" from its name.[66]

Other cases have gone against the company. In 2005 Starbucks lost a trademark infringement case against a smaller coffee vendor in South Korea that operates coffee stations under the name Starpreya. The company, Elpreya, says Starpreya is named after the Norse goddess, Freja, with the letters of that name changed to ease pronunciation by Koreans. The court rejected Starbucks' claim that the logo of Starpreya is too similar to their own logo.[67] A bar owner in Galveston, Texas, USA won the right to sell "Star Bock Beer" after a lawsuit by Starbucks in 2003 after he registered the name, but the 2005 federal court ruling also stated that the sale of the beer must be restricted to Galveston, a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.[68]

Ongoing cases include a dispute over the copyright application for Seattle’s Rat City Rollergirls logo in 2008[69] The company claimed the roller derby league’s logo by a Washington artist[70] was too similar to its own. Starbucks requested an extension to further examine the issue and possibly issue a complaint, which was granted by the Trademark Office. The July 16, 2008 deadline passed without action by the corporation.[71] Starbucks launched action against an Indian cosmetics business run by Shaznaz Husain, after she applied to register the name Starstruck for use with coffee and related products. She said her aim was to open a chain of stores selling coffee and chocolate-based cosmetics.[65]

Others have used the Starbucks logo unaltered and without permission, such as a café in Pakistan that used the logo in 2003 in its advertisements[72] and a cafe in Cambodia in 2009, the owner saying that "whatever we have done we have done within the law".[73]

Corporate social responsibility

Starbucks releases an annual Corporate social responsibility report.[74]

Grounds for your Garden

Environmental impact

In 1999, Starbucks started "Grounds for your Garden" to make their business more environmentally-friendly. This gives leftover coffee grounds to anyone requesting it for composting. Although not all stores and regions participate, customers can request and lobby their local store to begin the practice.

In 2004, Starbucks began reducing the size of their paper napkins and store garbage bags, and lightening their solid waste production by 816.5 metric tons (1.8 million pounds).[75] In 2008, Starbucks was ranked #15 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of Top 25 Green Power Partners for purchases of renewable energy.[76]

In October 2008, The Sun newspaper reported that Starbucks was wasting 23.4 million litres of water a day by leaving a tap constantly running for rinsing utensils in a 'dipper well' in each of its stores[77], but this is often required by governmental public health code[78].

In June 2009, in response to concerns over its excessive water consumption, Starbucks re-evaluated its use of the dipper well system. It intends to introduce new rinsing policies pertaining to its latte and mixing spoons it usually rinses in the continually running dipper wells. It furthermore intends to install metered, or push-button/on-demand, faucets in all of its stores' dipper wells. This will purportedly save up to 150 gallons of water per day in every store.[citation needed]

A bin overflowing with Starbucks cups

Recycling

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the first-ever approval to use recycled content in food packaging for Starbucks coffee cups. In 2005 Starbucks received the National Recycling Coalition Recycling Works Award.[79]

Starbucks bought 2.5 billion cups for stores in North America in 2007. The 10% recycled paper cups used by Starbucks are not recyclable, because the plastic coating that prevents the cup from leaking also prevents it from being recycled. Starbucks is considering using biodegradable material instead of plastic to line the cups, and is testing composting of the existing cups. Many Starbucks stores do not have recycling bins; only 1/3 of company-owned stores recycled any materials in 2007.[80] Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council says that Starbucks claimed they were using only 10% recycled material partly because the recycled material costs more.[81]

Starbucks gives customers a 10-cent discount when they bring their own reusable cup, and it now uses corrugated cup sleeves made from 60 percent post-consumer recycled fiber.[80]

Fair trade

Starbucks coffee beans

In 2000, the company introduced a line of fair trade products.[82] Of the approximately 136,000 metric tons (300 million pounds) of coffee Starbucks purchased in 2006, about 6 percent was certified as fair trade.[83]

According to Starbucks, they purchased 2,180 metric tons (4.8 million pounds) of Certified Fair Trade coffee in fiscal year 2004 and 5,220 metric tons (11.5 million pounds) in 2005. They have become the largest buyer of Certified Fair Trade coffee in North America (10% of the global market). Transfair USA,[84] the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade Certified coffee in the United States, has noted the impact Starbucks has made in the area of Fair Trade and coffee farmer's lives:

Since launching {its} FTC coffee line in 2000, Starbucks has undeniably made a significant contribution to family farmers through their rapidly growing FTC coffee volume. By offering FTC coffee in thousands of stores, Starbucks has also given the FTC label greater visibility, helping to raise consumer awareness in the process.

From September 2 2009 all Espresso Roast sold in the UK and Ireland is 100% Fairtrade. This means that the coffee in all Cappuccinos, Lattes, Mochas, Americanos etc are brewed with 100% Fairtrade Espresso.

Groups such as Global Exchange are calling for Starbucks to further increase its sales of fair trade coffees.

Beyond Fair Trade Certification, Starbucks argues that it pays above market prices for all of its coffee. According to the company, in 2004 it paid on average $1.42 per pound ($2.64 kg) for high-quality coffee beans.[85] This is in comparison to commodity prices which were as low as $0.50–$0.60 in 2003–2004.[86]

A Starbucks barista

Staff training

Black aprons displaying the title "Coffee Master" are worn by employees who have completed the Coffee Master course, which educates employees in coffee tasting, growing regions, roasting, and purchasing (including fair trade). Almost 70% of the coffee used by Starbucks around the world comes from the sixth major producer in the world, Guatemala, a pro-organic producer.

A display of Ethos water

Ethos water

Ethos, a brand of bottled water acquired by Starbucks in 2005, is sold at locations throughout North America. Ethos bottles feature prominent labeling stating "helping children get clean water", referring to the fact that $.05 from each $1.80 bottle sold ($.10 per bottle in Canada) is used to fund clean water projects in under-developed areas. Although sales of Ethos water have raised over $6,200,000 for clean water efforts, the brand is not a charity. Critics have argued that the claim on the label misleads consumers into thinking that Ethos is primarily a charitable organization, when it is actually a for-profit brand and the vast majority of the sale price (97.2%) does not support clean-water projects.[87][88] The founders of Ethos have stated that the brand is intended to raise awareness of third-world clean water issues and provide socially responsible consumers with an opportunity to support the cause by choosing Ethos over other brands.[89] Starbucks has since redesigned the American version of the Ethos water bottles, stating the amount of money donated per bottle in the description.

Product Red

Starbucks began selling Product Red goods in November 2008, enabling the supply of AIDS medicine for 3,800 people for a year.[90]

New Orleans

In 2008, Starbucks announced a volunteer program in New Orleans, three years after Hurricane Katrina. According to Rebuilding Together New Orleans, employees will work on various projects, including houses, planting trees and an urban garden. A volunteer coordinator said that "I've never seen this magnitude from one corporation before, I'll say that, in terms of the sheer numbers."[91]

Criticism and controversy

Several activist groups maintain websites criticizing the company's fair-trade policies, labor relations, and environmental impact, and hold it as a prime example of U.S. cultural and economic imperialism.[citation needed] Several Starbucks locations were vandalized during the WTO meeting held in Seattle in late 1999.[citation needed]

Two Starbucks stores in one shopping center in Queens, New York

Market strategy

Some of the methods Starbucks has used to expand and maintain their dominant market position, including buying out competitors' leases, intentionally operating at a loss, and clustering several locations in a small geographical area (i.e., saturating the market), have been labeled anti-competitive by critics.[92] For example, Starbucks fueled its initial expansion into the UK market with a buyout of Seattle Coffee Company, but then used its capital and influence to obtain prime locations, some of which operated at a financial loss. Critics claimed this was an unfair attempt to drive out small, independent competitors, who could not afford to pay inflated prices for premium real estate.[93] Starbucks in the 2000s greatly increased its "licensed store" franchise system, which permits Starbucks franchises only if they are inside other stores or in limited or restricted access spaces, as to not dilute the brand image. Franchise agreements are rare in volume and usually only made with Fortune 1000 or similar sized chain stores[94]. The licensed store system can create the illusion of 2 or more Starbucks cafes in the same shopping plaza, when one is a standalone company owned, and the others are licensed. The menus of licensed stores can be the same or trimmed or modified versions of the cafes, or be positioned as independent cafes that happen to sell Starbucks products (ex. Barnes & Noble). The policy of clustering stores was parodied in The Onion with the headline, "New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks".[95]

The Reverend Billy leading an anti-Starbucks protest in Austin, Texas in 2007

Labor disputes

, "If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union."[96]

Starbucks workers in seven stores have joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as the Starbucks Workers Union since 2004.[97]

According to a Starbucks Union press release, since then the union membership has begun expanding to Chicago and Maryland in addition to New York City, where the movement originated.[98][99] On March 7, 2006, the IWW and Starbucks agreed to a National Labor Relations Board settlement in which three Starbucks workers were granted almost US$2,000 in back wages and two fired employees were offered reinstatement.[100][101][102] According to the Starbucks Union, on November 24, 2006, IWW members picketed Starbucks locations in more than 50 cities around the world in countries including Australia, Canada, Germany, and the UK, as well as U.S. cities including New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco,[103] to protest the firing of five Starbucks Workers Union organizers by Starbucks and to demand their reinstatement.

Some Starbucks baristas in Canada,[104] Australia and New Zealand,[105] and the United States[106] belong to a variety of unions.

In 2005, Starbucks paid out US$165,000 to eight employees at its Kent, Washington, roasting plant to settle charges that they had been retaliated against for being pro-union. At the time, the plant workers were represented by the IUOE. Starbucks admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.[97]

A Starbucks strike occurred in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 23, 2005.[105] Organized by Unite Union, workers sought secure hours, a minimum wage of NZ$12 an hour, and the abolition of youth rates. The company settled with the Union in 2006, resulting in pay increases, increased security of hours, and an improvement in youth rates.[107]

In March 2008, Starbucks was ordered to pay baristas over US$100 million in back tips in a Californian class action lawsuit launched by baristas alleging that granting shift-supervisors a portion of tips violates state labor laws. The company plans to appeal. Similarly, an 18 year-old barista in Chestnut Hill, MA has filed another suit with regards to the tipping policy. Massachusetts law also states that managers may not get a cut of tips.[108][109] A similar lawsuit was also filed in Minnesota on March 27, 2008.[110]

Opening without planning permission

Starbucks has been accused by local authorities of opening several stores in the United Kingdom in retail premises, without the planning permission for a change of use to a restaurant. Starbucks has argued that "Under current planning law, there is no official classification of coffee shops. Starbucks therefore encounters the difficult scenario whereby local authorities interpret the guidance in different ways. In some instances, coffee shops operate under A1 permission, some as mixed use A1/A3 and some as A3".[111]

In May 2008, a branch of Starbucks was completed on St. James's Street in Kemptown, Brighton, England, despite having been refused permission by the local planning authority, Brighton and Hove City Council, who claimed there were too many coffee shops already present on the street.[112][113] Starbucks appealed the decision by claiming it was a retail store selling bags of coffee, mugs and sandwiches, gaining a six month extension,[114] but the council ordered Starbucks to remove all tables and chairs from the premises by 20 February 2009, to comply with planning regulations for a retail shop.[115] 2500 residents have signed a petition against the store, and public inquiry is due to be held on 10 June 2009.[116]

A Starbucks in Hertford won its appeal in April 2009 after being open for over a year without planning permission.[117] Two stores in Edinburgh[118], one in Manchester[119], one in Cardiff[120], one in Pinner, Harrow,[111] and one in Blackheath, Lewisham[121][122] were also opened without planning permission.

Alleged relationship with the Israeli military

There have been calls for boycott of Starbucks stores and products because it is alleged that Starbucks sends part of its profits to the Israeli military, something Starbucks refutes.[123] This allegation is apparently based on a spoof letter published on an anti-Zionist website.[124]

It has been long alleged that CEO Howard Schultz is "an active Zionist"[125] and is a recipient of several Israeli awards including "The Israel 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" for "playing a key role in promoting a close alliance between the United States and Israel."[125] In response to these allegations Starbucks issued a statement saying “Neither Chairman Howard Schultz nor Starbucks fund or support the Israeli Army. Starbucks is a non-political organization and does not support individual political causes.”[125]

Starbucks has been a regular target of activists protesting against the Israeli intervention in Gaza. Starbucks was forced to close a store in Beirut, Lebanon because of demonstrators shouting anti-Israel slogans and causing customers to flee.[126][dead link] Protesters in Beirut told the Associated Press that they targeted Starbucks because they claim Howard Schultz donates money to the Israeli military. They hung several banners on the shop's window and used white tape to paste a Star of David over the green-and-white Starbucks sign. They also distributed a letter saying Schultz "is one of the pillars of the American Jewish lobby and the owner of the Starbucks," which they said donates money to the Israeli military.[127] Starbucks responded by saying "Rumors that Starbucks Coffee Company and its management support Israel are unequivocally false. ... Starbucks is a nonpolitical organization and does not support political causes. Further, political preferences of a Starbucks partner [employee] at any level have absolutely no bearing on Starbucks company policies."[127]

A store on Piccadilly with its windows boarded up after being smashed by protesters

Violence against Starbucks in the United Kingdom

On January 12, 2009, a Starbucks in Whitechapel Road in London was the target of vandalism by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who broke windows and reportedly ripped out fittings and equipment after clashes with riot police. In the early hours of the following morning a suspected makeshift firebomb was hurled into the premises, causing further damage.[127][128][129]

On January 17, 2009, a pro-Gaza protest was held by the Stop the War Coalition in Trafalgar Square in central London. After the rally, two groups of people, some hiding their faces, smashed and looted two Starbucks on Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue. Although the stores had requested greater police protection following the violence against a Starbucks the previous week, Scotland Yard stated it could "not stop thugs hell-bent on causing damage."[128][130][131][132]

Accusations by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi

In a sermon aired on Al Jazeera TV on January 9, 2009 (as translated by MEMRI), Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi accused Starbucks of supporting Israeli education and the Israeli Army and called for a boycott of the company and other western chains.[133] Al-Qaradawi has previously called for a similar boycott of all US products with limited success.[134]

Accusations by Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi

On January 25, 2009, Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi claimed that Starbucks's "siren" logo is actually a depiction of the ancient Jewish queen Esther. He then called for Muslims to boycott all Starbucks coffee shops in the Arab world as a result.[135] Columnist Melanie Phillips has satirised this idea as the "The Protocol of the Drinkers of Coffee".[136]

The Way I See It

Quotes by artists, writers, scientists and others have appeared on Starbucks cups since 2005 in a campaign called "The Way I See It".[137] Some of the quotes have caused controversy, including one by gay writer Armistead Maupin and another by Jonathan Wells that linked 'Darwinism' to eugenics, abortion and racism.[138]

US military viral email

A US Marines Sergeant emailed ten of his friends in August 2004 having wrongly been told that Starbucks had stopped supplying the military with coffee donations because the company did not support the Iraq war. The email became viral, being sent to tens of millions of people. Starbucks and the originator sent out a correction,[139] but Starbucks' VP of global communications, Valerie O'Neil, says the email is still forwarded to her every few weeks.[140][141][142]

Music, film, and television

Starbucks' second Hear Music Coffeehouse at the South Bank development adjacent to the River Walk in downtown San Antonio, Texas.

Hear Music is the brand name of Starbucks' retail music concept. Hear Music began as a catalog company in 1990, adding a few retail locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hear Music was purchased by Starbucks in 1999. Nearly three years later, in 2002, they produced a Starbucks opera album, featuring artists such as Luciano Pavarotti, followed in March 2007 by the hit CD "Memory Almost Full" by Paul McCartney, making McCartney the first artist signed to New Hear Music Label sold in Starbucks outlets. Its inaugural release was a big non-coffee event for Starbucks the first quarter of 2007.

In 2006, the company created Starbucks Entertainment, one of the producers of the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee. Retail stores heavily advertised the film before its release and sold the DVD.[143]

Partnership with Apple

Starbucks has agreed to a partnership with Apple to collaborate on selling music as part of the "coffeehouse experience". In October 2006, Apple added a Starbucks Entertainment area to the iTunes Store, selling music similar to that played in Starbucks stores. In September 2007 Apple announced that there would be wireless communication between the iTunes Store and Starbucks, via AT&T (with no requirement to be an AT&T subscriber), targeted at iPhone, iPod Touch, and Macbook users. The iTunes Store will automatically detect recent songs playing in a Starbucks and offer users the opportunity to download the tracks. This feature has been rolled out in Seattle, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and was offered in limited markets during 2007–2008.[144] During the fall of 2007, Starbucks also began to sell digital downloads of certain albums through iTunes. Starbucks gave away 37 different songs for free download through iTunes as part of the "Song of the Day" promotion in 2007, and a "Pick of the Week" card is now available at Starbucks for a free song download.

Partnership with MSNBC

Starting on June 1, 2009, the MSNBC morning news program Morning Joe has been presented as "brewed by Starbucks" and the show's logo changed to include the company logo. Although the hosts have previously consumed Starbucks coffee on air "for free" in the words of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, it was not paid placement at that time.[145] The move was met with mixed reactions from rival news organizations, viewed as both a clever partnership in an economic downturn and a compromise of journalistic standards.[146]

See also

Further reading

  • Michelli, Joseph A. (2006). The Starbucks experience: 5 principles for turning ordinary into extraordinary, 208 pages. ISBN 0-07-147784-5.
  • Schultz, Howard and Dori Jones Yang. (1997). Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time, 350 pages. ISBN 0-7868-6315-3.
  • Behar, Howard with Janet Goldstein. (2007). It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks, 208 pages. ISBN 1591841925.
  • Clark, Taylor. (2007). Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture. 336 pages. ISBN 031601348X.
  • Simon, Bryant. (2009). Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks. 320 pages. ISBN 0520261062.

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