Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation, generally known as Starbucks Coffee, is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chainbased in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with 21,160 stores in 63 countries and territories, including 12,067 in the United States, 1,570 in China, 1,451 in Canada, 1,070 inJapan and 793 in the United Kingdom. Starbucks locations serve hot and cold beverages, whole-bean coffee, microground instant coffee, full-leaf teas, pastries, and snacks. Most stores also sell pre-packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, and items such as mugs and tumblers. Starbucks Evenings locations also offer a variety of beers, wines, and appetizers after 4pm. 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 1971 as a Seattle coffee bean roaster and retailer, the company has expanded rapidly. Since 1987, Starbucks has opened on average two new stores every day. Starbucks had been profitable as a local company in Seattle in the early 1980s but lost money on its late 1980s expansion into the Midwest and British Columbia. Its fortunes did not reverse until the fiscal year of 1989-1990, when it registered a small profit of $812,000. By the time it expanded into California in 1991 it had become trendy. The first store outside the United States or Canada opened in Tokyo in 1996, and overseas stores now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores. The company planned to open a net of 900 new stores outside of the United States in 2009, but has announced 300 store closures in the United States since 2008.

Founding

The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971, by three partners who met while they were students at theUniversity of San Francisco:English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans. Originally the company was to be called Pequod, after a whaling ship from Moby-Dick, but this name was rejected by some of the co-founders. The company was instead named after the chief mate on the Pequod, Starbuck.

However, Bowker has a different recollection of how the company got its name. He recalls that the co-founders were desperately close to naming the company "Cargo House" until Heckler mentioned that he thought words that began with "st" were powerful ones. That led Bowker to make a list of "st" words, and somebody somehow saw the old mining town of Starbo in an old mining map.

The first Starbucks cafe was located at 2000 Western Avenue from 1971–1976. This cafe was later moved to 1912 Pike Place Market; never to be relocated again. During this time, the company only sold roasted whole coffee beans and did not yet brew coffee to sell The only brewed coffee served in the store were free samples. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers.

Products

In June 2009, the company announced that it would be overhauling its menu and selling salads and baked goods without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial ingredients.^[53] This move was expected to attract health- and cost-conscious consumers and will not affect prices.

Starbucks introduced a new line of instant coffee packets, called VIA "Ready Brew", in March 2009. It was first unveiled in New York City with subsequent testing of the product also in Seattle, Chicago and London. The first two VIA flavors include Italian Roast and Colombia, which were then rolled out in October 2009, across the U.S. and Canada with Starbucks stores promoting the product with a blind "taste challenge" of the instant versus fresh roast, in which many people could not tell the difference between the instant and fresh brewed coffee. Analysts^[who?] speculated that by introducing instant coffee, Starbucks would devalue its own brand.

Starbucks began selling beer and wine at some US stores in 2010. As of April 2012, it is available at seven locations and others have applied for licenses.

In 2011, Starbucks introduced its largest cup size, the Trenta, which can hold 31 ounces. In September 2012, Starbucks announced the Verismo, a consumer-grade single-serve coffee machine that uses sealed plastic cups of coffee grounds, and a "milk pod" for lattes.

On November 10, 2011, Starbucks Corporation announced that it had bought juice company Evolution Fresh for $30 million in cash and plans to start a chain of juice bars starting in around middle of 2012, venturing into territory staked out by Jamba Inc. Its first store released in San Bernardino, California and plans for a store in San Francisco will be launched in early 2013.

In 2012, Starbucks began selling a line of iced Starbucks Refresher beverages in its stores which contain an extract from green arabica coffee beans. The beverages are fruit flavored and contain caffeine but are known for great taste with "none of the coffee flavor". Starbucks' green coffee extraction process involves soaking the beans in water.

On June 25, 2013, Starbucks began to post calorie counts on menus for drinks and pastries in all of their U.S. stores.

In 2014, Starbucks began producing their own line of "handcrafted" sodas, dubbed "Fizzio".

Tea

Starbucks entered the tea business in 1999 when it acquired the Tazo brand for US$8.1 million. In late 2012, Starbucks paid US$620 million to buy Teavana. As of November 2012, there is no intention of marketing Starbucks' products in Teavana stores, though the acquisition will allow the expansion of Teavana beyond its current main footprint in shopping malls.

Coffee quality[

Kevin Knox, who was in charge of coffee quality at Starbucks from 1987 to 1993, recalled on his blog in 2010 how George Howell, coffee veteran and founder of the Cup of Excellence, had been appalled at the dark roasted beans that Starbucks was selling in 1990. Talking to the New York Times in 2008, Howell stated his opinion that the dark roast used by Starbucks does not deepen the flavor of coffee, but instead can destroy purported nuances of flavor. The March 2007 issue of Consumer Reports compared American fast-food chain coffees and ranked Starbucks behind McDonald's Premium Roast. The magazine called Starbucks coffee "strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open".

Other products

In 2012, Starbucks introduced Starbucks Verismo, a line of coffee makers that brew espresso and regular coffee from coffee capsules, a type of pre-apportioned single-use container of ground coffee and flavorings utilizing the K-Fee pod system.^[67] In a brief review of the 580 model, Consumer Reports described the results of a comparative test of the Verismo 580 against two competitive brands: "Because you have to conduct a rinse cycle between each cup, the Verismo wasn't among the most convenient of single-serve machines in our coffeemaker tests. Other machines we've tested have more flexibility in adjusting brew strength—the Verismo has buttons for coffee, espresso, and latte with no strength variation for any type. And since Starbucks has limited its coffee selection to its own brand, there are only eight varieties so far plus a milk pod for the latte