Votes In Please, on Starbucks New Blend --

A quick post today, and a request for opinions: Starbucks' new blend of premium coffee is Pike Place Roast.

Have you tried it? Do you like it?

(Also, everyone has an opinion about the jolly-green-coffee-giant: tell it to Starbucks at their new site: http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/home/home.jsp

Starbucks Steps Up Their Game

NY Times / Stuart Isett



Retail coffee sales is big business. We all know that. Until recently, Starbucks had a lock on the premier coffee market, then along came strong, local independents, like La Colombe in Philadelphia, and from the other side, big boys Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds.

If you think Starbucks is going to sit back on their laurels and lose market share without a fight, think again. Starbucks' first interest in green is not the environment (sorry, bad dad analogy).

Today, I read a story of their first response to this competition, and the criticism that their coffee is no longer the best.

Starbucks has purchased a company called the Coffee Equipment Company of Seattle (CECS). CECS makes a coffee brewing machine that brews one cup at a time with freshly ground beans, adjustments can be made according to the kind of coffee. It was being sold to non-Starbucks specialty, coffee-bars at the cost of $11,000. Starbucks is now testing the machine in select Boston, Massachusetts Starbucks stores. They are, according to their CEO, committed to making a better cup of coffee.

The problem Starbucks has is a little more complicated than making a better cup of coffee. They have diffused their business to the point of slightly losing their identity. Their initial appeal, to coffee lovers who will pay for a good cup of coffee was expanded to the casual buyer who wants the flavored coffee drinks and who doesn't care about the finer details of coffee flavor. Starbucks in the last few years has made a fortune off the latter. Add to that music, mugs, t-shirts, machinery, chocolate and lunch and you start to have an identity crisis. If you lose the real coffee-lovers, eventually you lose the others. It's the problem of time, meteoric-style growth, profitability, and a diffused vision.

Starbucks has lost 45% of their market value in the last two years. The Dow gained 10%, the NASDAQ stayed even. That's really bad news for Starbucks. But, they are still very profitable, they are sitting on a billion in cash, and I think, on the offensive again. Honestly, I look to see a Starbucks resurgence.

(Jeromey, still there? Your turn.)

Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/dining/26starbucks.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

A Little Stoli with Your Starbucks, Ma'am?

"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." V. Lenin. 1920.

I thought of this statement of Vladimir Lenin's as I read the Wall Street Journal headline, "Starbucks to Open First Store in Russia". (Saturday, September 8, 2007)
Mr. Lenin might have to reword that statement if it were made today. Because the company becoming as well known as Coca-Cola is invading the motherland. After a long legal battle over Starbucks' "hi-jacked" trademark rights the company prevailed and has opened its first store in a Moscow mall. There are already many Starbucks stores in Beijing. Starbucks' goal is 20,000 outside the USA.
Some of my friends see Starbucks as a kind of "Hallmark" card of coffee stores. I don't. They have a consistently good product, a knowledgeable and friendly staff, and an atmosphere that is welcoming. Yea, they are annoyingly successful. But as I keep saying, few coffee shops can offer what they offer. There are probably a dozen coffee bars near me as I write in Philadelphia, and there is only one that has coffee as good. One. Starbucks does this 20,000 times in the U.S. with remarkable consistency. But I'll talk about the one here that I like in a day or two because it is impressive.