Starbucks Via: the least worst instant coffee?

Starbucks is the company that coffee people love to hate.  They’re an easy target, after all, our favorite whipping boy.
That’s why it surprises people when I tell them I don’t hate Starbucks; in fact, I owe them a debt of gratitude for doing the market development that enables our business.  They’re not my favorite, either.  [...]

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Starbucks Net Drops 97%

Wow.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Read about it HERE.
As much as I would like people to buy our coffee and brew at home, a 97% drop in net income is astounding.  Granted, that included some extraordinary charges, but even excluding one time pops they missed by three cents.  If ever there was [...]

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The Starbucks Theory of International Economics

I just came across an interesting piece on Slate’s website that is a variation of Freidman’s McDonald’s Theory of international relations.  For those who didn’t read The Lexus and Olive Tree, Friedman made the observation that no two countries that both have McDonalds have gone to war with each other (at least since they got [...]

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New Starbucks Brew Gets Mixed Reception

I was catching up on my pile of this week’s Wall Street Journal today, and saw an article about customer reception to Starbuck’s new Pike Place Blend. I’d include a link to the online version, but it’s subscriber-only. Suffice it to say that many regular SBUX customers are unhappy with the new brew, [...]

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Giving credit where credit is due

This week I spent a couple days in Seattle, a place where there are probably more coffee shops per capita than anywhere else in the world, including Finland. And some of them are, in fact, very VERY good.
Starbucks is not usually one I would include in that category. But after reading about their “historic” new [...]

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Starbucks Pins Its Hopes on a new blend

So the big news really was just a new blend. Being a blender myself, I don’t want to minimize the difficulty or importance of a good blend; our Old North State has become pretty popular in these parts. But I thought they got a little carried away in the press release calling the [...]

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Starbucks Innovation – Wow!

So the press has been buzzing with the news that Starbucks will be announcing a big new change on Tuesday. What might it be, I thought? New relationship buying program? Massive consumer education? A return to traditional espresso systems?
No to all of the above. Turns out they are announcing a [...]

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Big Organic

Organic beer. I came across it at the supermarket a few months ago, and picked up a six-pack. I don’t recall the brand. I was disappointed with the beer, and mentioned it to one of my home brewer friends, who informed me that what I thought was a craft beer was actually [...]

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