At least that’s what the man responsible for it’s expanion from a small Seattle coffee shop to a worldwide phenomenon is saying:
SEATTLE — Starbucks has lost its soul and does not know where to find it.
Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz lamented as much in a recent internal memo to his executives. He wrote that as the world’s largest specialty coffee company has expanded from fewer than 1,000 locations to about 13,000, its stores no longer even smell like coffee because of “flavor locked packaging.”
His memo grieved, too, over the loss of “the romance and theatre” of traditional Italian espresso makers, which have been replaced by automatic machines. Shultz wrote that the new machines, while more efficient, block customers from watching as coffee drinks are made and sharing what he called an “intimate experience with the barista.”
“One of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past,” he wrote. “Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee.”
Whether Schultz is right or not is a matter of taste, I suppose. I like Starbuck’s coffee, but mostly just to buy in a bag and take home. I’ve never been into the latte’s and other exotic stuff they sell there. Also, I’m not sure what Schultz is aiming for —- when you run a corporation with tens of thousands of stores worldwide, you’re not going to be able to run it like a small business.
