Date: 03-24-2008
In order to win back customers, Starbucks CEO Howard D. Schultz has announced a radical changeover plan to return to grinding coffee beans through sophisticated hi-tech brewing machines. The struggling coffee kingpin introduced an automated Swiss-made Mastrena espresso machine in front of its 6,000 investors, employees, and analysts, which will be grinding coffee beans within the store itself, from now on. Schultz unveiled a host of other plans too, including the takeover of Coffee Equipment Company which brews the expensive Clover coffee and a partnership with Conservation International. The important key to Starbucks recovery of coffee sales, is a “back to the future” approach of returning to grinding beans in the store and letting the smell of coffee reach its customers, beams the optimistic CEO. The announcements indicate Starbucks initiative to hit the turf aggressively, which is seeing intensifying competition from Dunkin’s Donuts and McDonald’s in recent times.
