The predicament is obvious. Starbucks wants to keep hold of customers through the economic dip. It’s having a tough time. The aggressive store expansion programme has left it with too many outlets, falling footfall and belt-tightening customers who now see that £3 is a lot to pay for a cup of coffee. Do that every day and your daily cuppa on the way to work is setting you back £60 a month. An obvious cut back when you’re looking to reduce outgoings.
Yet on the face of it, this strategy is hard to reconcile with the Company’s founding beliefs. In Schultz’s own words, he was inspired “to unlock the romance and mystery of coffee” by “the Italian passion for treating every detail of food preparation with reverence and an insistence that nothing less than the best will do.”
We are of course being reassured that it tastes exactly like the freshly-brewed version. That it took 20 years to get it right. That people can’t tell the difference. So maybe we are about to see a taste revolution. If anyone can achieve it Starbucks can, with its roasting and brewing experience and the current financial need.
There are two implications here. If it doesn’t taste as good, if we can tell the difference, then Starbuck’s reputation for quality coffee is challenged. If it does taste as good, why the need for all that palaver with barista’s, roasting and grinding whole beans. A coffee is only as good as its taste and the fairness of its sourcing. Cheaper coffee, same great taste...we’ll all switch, leaving Starbucks with a higher footfall requirement to maintain revenue. And so, on the eve of Valentine Day I have to ask, might this spell the death knell for the mystery and romance of coffee, which to-date has been the magic and passion driving the brand?
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