The story of how Starbucks was born is really interesting, but did you know that at one point in that timeline, sandwiches became one of its enemies?
Oh! That it wasn’t just the breakfast sandwiches but rather an aggressive growth strategy, local competition, a slowdown in foot traffic in its stores and as a consequence a drop in its sales and shares.
Between 2006 and 2008 the assets of this company fell by 75% and for its recovery they reappointed Howard Schultz as its CEO. The businessman began a restructuring and reorganization of the brand with the aim of recovering its essence.
a bit of context
Schultz stepped down as CEO of the coffee company in 2000. During that time the brand had excellent growth until 2007 when the company announced that foot traffic in its stores had decreased by 1% in the United States.
Although it seems very little, this drop in traffic anticipated a drop in sales that occurred six months later and the market punished the siren brand with a collapse of its assets by more than 40%.
What happened?
Growth had become the strategy of the Starbucks board of directors and they had forgotten some of the characteristics that were basically its spirit, such as the experience of preparing and drinking coffee.
For example: they began to replace the manual machines for making coffee with automatic ones, which were tall and, in addition to the traditional process, they managed to eliminate the relationship between the barista and the client, that is, seeing how the drink was prepared.
Likewise, the firm changed its way of distributing its main product and with the need to send it fresh to all the cities of the United States, it began to use aseptic packaging that isolated the coffee from the smells and flavors around it, eliminating said aroma in its stores. .
In addition, since 2003 they had invested large amounts of money to offer sandwiches, sausages and other products in cafeterias, which began to further diminish their brand essence and to this we add the economic crisis of the time plus competition.
“The sales [de Starbucks] in the United States have been affected by a weak economy and increased competition from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts”, reported the New York Times at the end of January 2008.
bye bye sandwiches
Against this backdrop, Schultz, who returned to his CEO role in 2008, began with a plan to recapture the brand, explaining as part of the plan that they would discontinue breakfast sandwiches and focus on healthy options and high-quality baked goods.
“In short, the aroma of hot sandwiches interferes with the aroma of coffee in our stores,” he said in January of that year.
Although to recover, it was not only necessary to find a better option for breakfast. In this regard, the restructuring also saw the closure of 100 underperforming locations and a reduction in the rate of new store openings in the United States.
Why are there still sandwiches at Starbucks?
The answer is clear, after having created an odor commission and invested months in research, testing and development to try to minimize the odors of these foods, they returned the sandwiches to the store.
“We made component changes to the current line of breakfast sandwiches. We have found minor ingredient changes that address aroma issues in our current breakfast sandwiches and have already implemented them,” the company said in a July 2008 statement.
These changes reduced the amount of butter, eggs, and cheese in those foods. Selling sandwiches at Starbucks boosted sales at locations that offered them and kept customers from sourcing food elsewhere, so cutting them out altogether may never have been an option.
Mary Arcia Communicologist and Master in Narrative and Audiovisual Production graduated from the Universidad Panamericana. “I like to tell stories” is a phrase I say very often. Person with strong convictions of a better world, reader.