It appears that a deal was signed recently with L’Usine Textile du Rwanda (Utexrwa) by Howard Schultz during his visit to Rwanda in June this year (looks like the Gulfstream is getting some use!).  According to the report, a Starbucks office was also opened, the first on the continent.

Link to article: http://allafrica.com/stories/200907280025.html

TEXTILES!!!!! What ever next – kitchen and bathroom accessories!!!!!

So much for going back to the basics of being a “coffee house”.  Given that the AllAfrica coffee blend offered by Starbucks is probably one of the nastiest tasting coffees on the market, and given that coffee sales continue to decline, do they go back to core principles – NO!  The Seattle dream factory finds other ways to diversify and clutter the stores with anything but great coffee!

You can imagine the scene:

Customer:” Can I get a grande Kenya coffee please”

Barista: “No sorry, its mid afternoon so all we are instructed to offer is Pike’s Place Roast”

Customer: “Yuk! I want a good bold coffee”

Barista: “Sorry, you should have come in this morning, if you don’t like the PPR then I can offer you a trendy Rwandan textile tote bag, or a nice basket.”

Customer: “But I want a good bold coffee – this is a coffee house isn’t it!!!”

Barista: “Well yes and no – we sell coffee but only what we want to give you, but forget that, how about a few yards of the handmade Rwandan fabric, would make a fabulous dress – can you sew?”

Customer: “AHHHHHHHHHH – better give me a strong beer”

Barista: “Sorry, that’s only available at our unbranded stores, you know, the ones that people aren’t supposed to think are big corporate stores but local little businesses – sneaky ehhh!  You might even get a decent coffee there, but as you’re here in a branded Starbucks, what do you think about a nice set of handmade baskets?   OOOOH you should see your face – the color matches the packaging of the AllAfrica coffee.  I’ld offer to sell you blood-pressure pills but we don’t start selling those until next business quarter – gulp! Please remove your hands from my throat – please!!!!!!!!”

OH the joy to come!

If the report is correct and we believe it is, then this is further evidence of big corporate mentality with a “lets make money anyway we can, screw the fact that we are supposed to be a coffee house, profits are king because we are in business for the stockholders and Starbucks is now a brand name so why not try to leverage that and attach the logo to any old crap we can.  If the stores can’t hack it we’ll close more and save even more money giving us better (short term-Ed) profits”.  (HS personal note to self: make sure to cash in my stock before the implosion so my retirement fund is secure – tell partners this is good for the company and them so they should buy more shares as the price will rise – suckers!)

Almost all the pastry items are delivered in bulk to the stores, where they are then separated and put on display.  Few if any are individually packed and labeled with contents and nutritional values.  The same applies to the breakfast sandwiches, which although individually wrapped for delivery to the store, are then unwrapped to be heated in the oven.

So, whether you are an in-store customer or a drive through customer, when the Barista tries to talk you into buying a food item, do you believe the Starbucks message:

“Real Food Simply Delicious

• No artificial flavors
• No artificial dyes
• No artificial trans fats
• No high-fructose corn syrup”

or should you check out the nutritional values for your self?

Of the stores that we have visited, none displayed in an easy to read format, the nutritional values of the unpackaged food items.  When we asked the people taking the orders, we were greeted with mostly blank stares, puzzled looks and the ubiquitous eye rolling cracked mouthed look that says

“another nutter, just my luck!  Does it say ‘useless information desk’ on my forehead or what!!!”

You know the look, and if you haven’t experienced yet, just go to the nearest Starbucks and ask for something other than a Grande Mocha, then you’ll see it!

It’s becoming an all too familiar look on the faces of store staff, its similar to the

“you want what – listen I’ve been hear since 5 AM, we’re short staffed because of the freakin’ ALS (automatic labor system), the manger is an idiot and hasen’t been seen for days, I haven’t had my meal break because we are too busy and because we’re short staffed – and you want what!!!!! – go to McDonald’s and piss them off , just leave me alone, order a freakin’ coffee and don’t complain its not bold because we’re told to brew the crappy Pikes Place Roast, – and GO!!!!!!!!”

NOW you know the look!!!!

But what about the food – OK. We managed to get our sticky fingers on a copy of the internal Food Product Information  cards that have been sent to every store – interesting reading!

Does slapping a label on something saying it’s  “Reduced-Fat” automatically make it good?  Or is this simply marketing hype?  We see this on so many food products which upon close inspection are products that could be bad for you.  Like all things – moderation is the key, so eating a bad product once in a while is not going to have the paramedics beating a path to your door.  BUT, those who are regular (daily) visitors to the java store may need to think twice before being enticed to a slice of this, or that, or the breakfast pairing of the day.  Just what are you being asked to put in your mouth?  Could this be hazardous to my health?

Remember also that your favorite beverage with one pump of this, three of that, two of the other, topped off which whipped cream is a calorie-sugary-cholesterol buster all of its own!

When you look at the table below, ask yourself this:

“Is one 6.3 ounce sandwich really worth blowing almost half  or more of my recommended sodium intake for the day, on?”

“Is that slice of cake really worth almost 25%of my calorie intake for the day?”

Keeping in mind the plethora of information that is available on nutrition, we looked at the American Heart Association’s web site as a reference point for calories, fats, sodium levels etc.  So, working on an average of 2000 calories per day, and following the AHA recommendation on sodium(salt) which is:

Aim to eat less than 2,300 mg of salt per day. Some people — African Americans, middle-aged and older adults, and people with high blood pressure — need less than 1,500 mg per day.

To illustrate, the following are sources of sodium in the diet.
1/4 teaspoon salt     = 575 mg sodium
1/2 teaspoon salt     = 1,150 mg sodium
3/4 teaspoon salt     = 1,725 mg sodium
1 teaspoon salt           = 2,300 mg sodium

Lets look at the Starbucks “Healthy Foods” nutritional vales:

Whilst we admit this is not a comprehensive list of all the values, we selected out some of the more major items to consider, particularly sodium, calories and cholesterol.

“there are none so blind as those who will not see”

Why do Starbucks have so many law suits against them by former managers due to violations of the “exempt” status as defined by the NLRB?

If  Starbucks is fair to its employees and treats them with “respect & dignity”, why have the National Labor Relation Board SLAPPED them repeatedly?

It will be interesting to see when the economy shows real signs of picking up, just how many employees will “vote” with their feet and walk off into other jobs.

Starbucks has a serious internal problem with its management structure and managerial style that stockholders need to seriously question!

Question – “Do you think Starbucks has lost its way?”

YES definitely 88%
Somewhat 6%
Not really 6%
No 0%

There seems to be an overwhelming consensus that Starbucks HAS LOST ITS WAY.

Apart from the poll, further evidence seems to be indicated by the 77% decline in profits stated in their Q2 results. Many Stock analysts have also issued downgrades and sell recommendations for Starbucks stock. The only upbeat recommendation came from on analyst who’s firm is a market maker in the stock, so it is not unreasonable to assume they were just trying to drum up some business activtity.

Although there has been movement on the share price, most of this just inline with general market movement, nothing suggests optimism or reasons to buy.

Rumors on other blog sites seem to indicate that Starbucks could find itself a takeover target. Maybe a hostile bid is what is needed to shake the company out of its “we’re Starbucks so we must be right” fog and take a hard look at the reality – Starbucks has many serious internal issues and needs to shake up both staff and policies.

Complete the quickie poll over on the right and tell us what you think.  You can also add comments to this post if you wish.  We hope you do, as it will give us a further insight to what people think and feel, staff and customers alike.

It would seem that there some very upset people in the SW Florida area.

We were recently emailed a copy of a coupon that appeared in a local newspaper by an irate customer who tried to use it at a store other than the one shown on the coupon and was basically told to get lost – the coupon was unauthorized and therefore not valid.  So much for the “say yes” policy.

Our sources tell us that this not the first time this store has placed coupon ads in a local newspaper.  Sources say that this form of advertising is strictly forbidden by Starbucks, but it would seem that the Store Manager (SM) responsible has had nothing but a ‘mild slap on the wrist’ from the District Manager (DM) for that area.  Is this a DM who is understanding of the economic times and secretly admiring the SM’s inititive at trying to stimulate business or one who is oblivious to company policy? We emailed the company for comment, but have not received a reply.

If this type of advertising is not permitted by stores as a way of driving business to a particular store, then it begs the question “how are SM’s supposed to increase business and customer count?”  Clearly there are some ways:

1. Up-sell to increase the value of each transaction – BUT – many Batista’s don’t see themselves as ’salespeople’ and don’t know how to sell in a way that the customer would find non-pushy and that the barista would feel comfortable about doing.
2. Managers should be out in the community local to their store to build relationships with businesses and their employees.  They are after all the very people who are or could be regulars.  BUT – there is a major problem with this idea.  With all the cutbacks on staffing at stores, SM’s are forced to work in their stores, on the floor,  effectively becoming overpaid Batista’s!
3. Advertise a Coupon – why not – it’ll only cost you a slap on the wrist and it could produce hundreds more customers – just like the GoldCard!  This option clearly is not for the squeamish or faint of heart!

So, SM’s don’t have time to develop local business, which brings us back to option 1 – BUT – SM’s aren’t allowed training hours to train their teams in soft selling skills, and even if they could train their staff they don’t have the staffing required to allow for this to happen – seems like a “Catch 22″ situation!

BUT, don’t worry about it, just make sure ticket values are high and that you run a ‘LEAN’ store operation and make profits.  Never mind that your teams don’t know how to sell effectively, are under trained and that your DM doesn’t want excuses (regardless of how real and plausible they might be) just give the DM the numbers, stop whining about being ‘micromanaged’ and overworked (you didn’t really think that your mangers contract that said you got paid for 40 hours per week actually meant that you only worked 40 hours – did you! FOOL!!!) and you just might get to keep your job!

Starbucks will hold its annual stockholders meeting in Seattle next month.  Among the items they are asking stockholders to vote on is the increasing of the board size from its current 9 members to 11.  When you look at the agenda and  statement for the annual meeting, and then take into account the current economic climate and the claims made by Starbucks to effectively “trim costs”, a few things don’t quite seem to add up.

In an open statement to ALL Starbucks stockholders, take a close look at the Meeting Statement and see if you have better answers to the questions we raise here.

New Board Members: It’s proposed to add two new members to the Board, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Kevin R Johnson and ex-Microsoft man and currently CEO of Jupiter Networks.  Iteresting that both are IT related people – does this say something about where Starbucks sees future marketing efforts being concentrated – Social Networks?

While many long serving employees are being given their “pink slips”, these two Non-Executive directors will be given a compensation package of $240,000 EACH!  This would bring the Non-Executive pay pot to $2.4M per year, just for attending 4-6 Board meetings per annum.  The payments are of course in line the compensation packages recommended by the Compensation Review Committee in 2008.  Oh, by the way, that committee is made up of Starbucks Non-Executive Directors – guess that’s why it was approved!

At a time when others are loosing their jobs and the emphasis is on reducing costs, where is the justification for adding 2 more part-time people to the Board at $240,000 EACH?     Unless there are overwhelming and compelling reasons why these people should be appointed VOTE – NO to this proposal.

Selection of Board Members: The Starbucks rules are pretty broad when it comes to who should be nominated for a seat on the Board.  What’s interesting is that there is an option for a nominee to come from within the company – an existing employee – Hooray!!!.  So, why is it that apart from Howard Shultz, ALL other Board members are non-employees?

There is a distinct place for Non-Executive Directors on any Board, they can bring different perspectives and are not lost in the “can’t see the wood for the trees” syndrome that can color the decisions made by a Board that is totally Executive, but there does need to be a balanced mix between Executive and Non-Executive Board Directors.  As there are no selections from within Starbucks ranks, does that say something about the caliber of senior executives within Starbucks? Just asking!  Or are the appointments predicated around the “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine?”  Again, just asking!  Perhaps Ms. Sandberg’s political connections are what Howard i s seeking ( a former Chief of Staff at the Treasury under Clinton – no Monika jokes please).  Can you see it – Headline News : The White House proudly brews Starbucks coffee!!!!!

Stockholders – stick to the principles of cutting costs VOTE NO to new board appointments.

One key change needed is the doctrine of  “give the customer what ever they ask for”.  In pure customer service terms it’s reasonable, but store managers need to be empowered to “manage” there stores especially as they are expected to achieve targets that were reasonable in the good times but are outrageous in this climate, when they know that customers are blatantly scamming the store’s bottom line.

The last thing we want to do is expose ALL the scams, people will read them and the problems could compound.  However, to illustrate the point here is one simple one.   If a customer has a Starbucks card and buys a drip filter coffee for $1.75, the company policy is that the customer can get a free refill from the same store that day – the customer saves $0.53.  If the customer goes to another store with the same cup and asks for a refill – that store should charge $0.53 for the coffee as opposed to $1.75.

The problem: store staff are so brainwashed with “give the customer …” that many customers will take a cup into any Starbucks and ask for a “refill” and be given it “free” regardless of whether the original coffee was purchased at that store or not.  Add to this that people will pull this stunt 2/3/4 times a day at various Starbucks locations, knowing that they are unlikely to be challenged because “that’s not Starbucks policy to question customers” you can see how the numbers start to add up.

Starbucks stock holders should be outraged at this poor level of internal financial management control.  Why?  For those who are thinking – its only $0.53, let’s look at the numbers closely.

If it happens once at each store:

• $0.53 x 7087 (Starbucks published store count) =$3,756.11

If it then happened at every store just once every day of the year:

• $3,756.11 x 365 = $1,370,980.10  ($1.37M) per year in lost revenue, and that assumes only one person per day every day at every store.  But as stated earlier, some people are doing this 2/3/4 times per day 4 or 5 days per week!  DO THE MATH!

So what, Starbucks as a corporation will never notice!  Let’s look at this another way:

• Barista’s average $10 per hour, so roughly $20,000 per year, if this one scam was stopped DEAD then the $1.37M would enable 68 Baristas to have (keep) jobs!
• OR at $10 per hour it would provide 137,098 hours to be funded for what Starbucks calls “non-coverage” which could mean Managers could spend that time managing (a novel idea) instead of working as overpaid Barista’s – OR – provide more time for staff training.

However the money is used is not the real issue, customers are not scamming a faceless corporation, they are costing people their jobs and quite possibly their homes!  What they are doing is

• Dishonest
• Deceptive
• Fraudulent
• Theft
• and quite frankly disgusting – because of their greed they are placing peoples lives in financial ruin!

The two most disgusting things about this and other more costly scams, are:

1. Starbucks (yes you Shultz) allow this to go on – so much for their “respect and dignity” policy towards their partners
2. The people who for the most part that perform this act of blatant “theft” are not the homeless, or the poor, but those who know “the rules”, who know that the brainwashed Barista will not challenge them when they say “give me my free refill”. They are the ones who can well afford to pay, are often professionals and gainfully employed with little or no sign of being “separated from their employment” (what a quaint PC term) any time this decade.  They are often well dressed, drive premium cars and can afford $0.53.

So, if you are one of those dishonest “thieves”, when your local Starbucks closes down and provides you with an “inconvenience”, pat yourself on the back for helping add to the unemployment figures and probably also to the home foreclosure statistics.  Sit back with a smug smile of contentment as you reflect on how you and others like you added to the demise.  Look out of the window of your prestige vehicle and watch as the tumbleweed rolls past what was once your “favorite, so convenient, Starbucks drive-thru’”, that was once a place of employment for many, manned by people who went out of their way to provide you with an “experience”.

Cut back on your spending habits by all means -

but cease being a thieving  ASSHOLE!!!!

As for the mighty Howard and his merry band of incompitents (including District Managers), get your heads out of the clouds (and the $45M jet!) and change the policies BEFORE firing any more people.