Starbucks Gossip

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz cites 'enthusiastic response to our La Boulange bakery items'

From the July 25 Starbucks conference call with analysts:

"Our lunch offerings continue to expand in popularity. While Howard mentioned the enthusiastic response our La Boulange bakery items are receiving it is important to know that this quarter's comp growth contribution from food is not impacted by La Boulange due to this still early stage of the roll out."

More from Starbucks US president Cliff Burrows:

"I am delighted to say in every market we have introduced La Boulange so far has been extremely well received. The product is fantastic and we are seeing really, really encouraging results. So, the strategy is being justified and we are now through 1,000 stores by the end of Q3 and every market we open we are seeing great reception, particularly around the pastries, the croissants which is the core product of the La Boulange and it gives every confidence that we are on the road to a fantastic food platform will start with breakfast, we will then enhance lunch and the opportunity to enhance the current experience for the customers and grow sales is really strong."

* Read the transcript of the Starbucks conference call

I thought it would be more: 10% of Starbucks orders are paid for with a smartphone app

Starbucks says that more than 10% its payments in the US are made using smartphones -- about four million transactions per week. "The coffee behemoth enjoys a loyal, more tech-savvy crowd than many other businesses," notes the tech site The Verge.

At the Chicago-area stores I frequent (most of them in college town Evanston, Ill.), about one-quarter of the SBUX customers use the app for payments, according to my guesstimate. That's higher than the national average, I'm guessing, because most college students don't want to deal with yet another a plastic card and prefer to pay digitally.

What percentage of purchases are paid with the app at your stores?

* Ten percent of Starbucks transactions are mobile payments
* Starbucks' future is more food and more digital
* New York Times: "Starbucks has arguably had the most success with the pay-by-phone idea in the U.S."

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Starbucks gets into the yogurt business

Starbucks + Yogurt.

Yup.

* Starbucks and Danone join forces to sell yogurt
* Is Starbucks overreaching with this yogurt deal?

The best and worst things about being a barista

Some cuteness from BuzzFeed:

* 19 perks of being a barista
* The worst things about being a barista

Be honest, baristas! Have you ever done this with a cup?

The young man shown above -- a drama student from London -- claims he got this cup from an SBUX admirer.

How most people judge the quality of their coffee

It continues here

Starbucks sues suppliers after having to throw out thousands of sandwiches with spoiled meat

Starbucks says it had to throw out thousands of sandwiches because they had ham with "potentially harmful bacteria" and customers were complaining that the meat was spoiled. Now the company is suing two meat distributors for $5 million.

Starbucks ended up firing Wellshire Farms after learning that it was sending the coffee chain ham that had actually been supplied by a subcontractor, Hahn's of Westminster, Maryland.

* Starbucks sues meat suppliers for $5 million
* Starbucks sues over stomach-turning sandwiches