Date: 04-09-2008
Starbucks has launched a new coffee roast called Pike Place Roast to emphasize its coffee brewing and roasting abilities in the midst of slumping sales in the U.S. market. On Tuesday, the company will be giving away free 8-ounce samples of the new coffee for 30 minutes at about 7,100 stores, beginning at 9 a.m. “It is the best coffee that we have created, maybe, in our history,” Howard Schultz, CEO and Chairman of Starbucks said in a conference call on Monday. The company plans to focus more on brewed coffee, rather than espresso coffee, which it has served for years. The new coffee is named to evoke the company’s first ever location, which opened in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1971. Starbucks is battling hard to avoid any further slump due to general economic malaise and stiff competition from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, both of which started serving drip coffees recently.
